Evanescent Days: Everybody's Fool
by Daemonchan
Summary: Complete. After failing in the Gensoukai, Hisoka returns to the Meifu to help Tatsumi and Watari with their unusual case: unravel the secrets of the Kurosaki family.
1. Everybody's Fool 1:01

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.2.0

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

:warning: SPOILERS! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from theria(dot)net.

:author's note: I rewatched the anime and decided that I like Hisoka's powers there better. He isn't just an empath, he's a weak psychic and psychokinetic. Otherwise, he couldn't have read Tsuzuki's mind and he wouldn't have known how to find Maria just be touching a doorknob. I'm unsure of timelines so I've moved them around for my own purposes...Oh, and I'm making this up as I go...

:disclaimer: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei.

_:lyrics:_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

- - - - - -

_:perfect by nature  
icons of self indulgence:_

Kurosaki Nagare was a desperate man.

His body was failing, changing and weakening under the influence of the trapped demon, the Yatonokami. The skin hidden beneath the fine silk of his kimono was mottled blue green, ever increasing patches hard with overlapping scales. His nails had to be trimmed daily, a task that he took to doing obsessiely to keep them from becoming a demon's talons. His eyes were bound beneath a film of gauze, barely enough to still see, but sufficient to mask the slitted pupils and golden irises.

Throughout history, the male heirs of the Kurosaki name carried the burden, holding the demon within their bodies until they could pass it on to their children. Kurosaki Ren, the first of the noble family, had slain the demon's body, trapping the beast within his own soul and those of his sons. Centuries of servitude and sacrifice had worn the nobility of the cause thin...Nagare would sell his soul and the soul of his children to rid himself of the horrible demon.

Only, Nagare had no children left to pass on the curse.

-_Failure...soon I will be free...- _The snake demon crawled along his veins, pushing the limits of the human skin. He had never been so close to freedom...

Nagare had betrayed Ren's sacrifice, wanting nothing more than to erase the angry demon's presence. He had promised his son, sold his heir's soul long before he was even born. After Hisoka's death...the demon did not take kindly to failure.

Punishment was cruel and unusual. His wife, Rui, was in the throes of a demonic pregnancy. The demon lord was only a spirit within a shell...he would need a body once he finished with his last Kurosaki prison. Nagare was too weak to fight the Yatonokami's influence on his mind and body, binding his eyes and body to hide his shame. The demon would soon claim his body and be loosed on the world again, to once again ravage Kamakura.

His will to protect the people of the village had been meager even before his son's death. He had been raised to privilege, ruling the village below as if he were a deity himself, the people's thanks for Ren's heroic deed. But, the Kurosaki's power came with a staggering price. The first payment had been soul shattering. Nagare's first wife, Kasane, had given birth to their daughter, Hisoka. Dark traditions followed the keepers of the Yatonokami. The first born child was to inherit the curse, and that first born had to be male. Hisoka-sama had lived only a short time, yet her death haunted him in all moments of his life.

Nagare had been unable to make himself show any kind of affection to his second born, his son. Hisoka, given his sister's name to cover the damnable truth that he was not the natural heir, had been an unnatural child, able to peer into his parent's minds and hearts, leaving every secret bare to the world. Nagare's guilt and shame returned with every piercing emerald glance.

The Yatonokami seemed to take particular glee in Hisoka's abilities, often hinting that the boy's empathy was a result of his influence. He would gloat of Nagare's weak body and will, finally able to overcome the barriers of his entrapment and effect what form he would take next: a boy with the power to read minds and hearts.

Nagare felt a stab of fear at knowing that the demon had come to have so much power over the Kurosaki blood. The child was there to serve only one purpose in life...to take up the curse of the Kurosaki family as the god killers of Kamakura. A half demon boy...with a demon god's soul.

Thoughts of Hisoka came more frequently as he weakened, haunting him waking and sleeping. Nagare hadn't said the boy's name in years, either aloud or to himself, since before they kept him in the dungeon beneath the house, letting him out only at night when the people of the village could not discover his unnerving powers. He had seen the demon behind those eyes and hid the boy from not only the world, but the demon within his own body.

The boy's name was a reminder of the darkest moment of Nagare's life. Even seeing the character on paper made him hear the wail of a child, only to have that sound cut off by hands he knew belonged to his own brother, Iwao.

Kasane had killed herself soon after, throwing herself into the lake, now to walk it's shores as a restless specter. The Kasanekefuchi was known only to the Kurosaki family for it's tragic tale. After Kasane killed herself, Nagare could not let go of her memory, marrying her twin instead, always seeing his true beloved in her sister's face. Kurosaki Rui had given birth to the male heir, Hisoka, and Nagare had been able to breathe easier knowing that he would only have a few more years with the demon forever taunting in his mind.

The demon never counted on something as mundane as disease destroying his chance to regain his former glory. How stupidly ironic.

Hundreds of years...secrets and lies...the pledge to protect the people of Kamakura in return for unrivaled wealth and power.

_-Nagare-_

The Kurosaki patriarch hissed in anger, struggling feebly against the demon god's influence.

_-Isn't it enough that I torture your wife? Must you continue to fight the punishment for your failure?-_

Somewhere in the house, Rui let loose a scream of raw horror and agony. Nagare began tearing his plain kimono away, nails tearing into his marked skin, trailing blood across his body. The demon's mark flared brightly, shifting from what seemed merely an exquisite tattoo of a snake to iridescent scales up his back and shoulders, and flowing along his chest.

_-Hisoka was mine. My final freedom from the cursed Kurosaki line. His life for the release of the Kurosaki family.-_

Failure. Nagare and Rui had failed with their son, beyond their choice to abandon him to a dark existence in the dungeon below the house. One accidental night and the boy was beyond the Yatonokami's reach, his soul half in the living, half dead. Even after death, the body was too wasted and diseased for the demon to take.

His displeasure had been swift and terrible. Nagare fell to the ground, one great cough bringing up thick blood from his stomach. His inner organs were being moved and crushed as the demon continued his path to inevitable freedom.

_-My freedom comes with your death, Nagare. And I shall enjoy every moment until you take your last breath. Won't death be sweet after all?-_

The laugh that Nagare thought was just in his own mind actually bubbled from his own lips, so menacing and evil that it sent the servant in perpetual attendance scurrying from their master's chambers. It soon become a chuckle that ripped through his wasted frame, and died as he fell to the floor, unmoving within the bright puddle of his own blood, completely exhausted.

Kurosaki Nagare was a dead man. 


	2. Everybody's Fool 1:02

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.2.0

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

::warning:: SPOILERS!! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from theri(dot)net

::author's note:: I know nothing about what Mother is, or what Matsushita-sensei intends for it, but I have to at least mention it. That would make it a spoiler. Duh. I'm also playing with my own ideas of how they move from world to world. I think it's a matter of concentration, not location, and power. They have to know where they are going, which is why it's harder to transport in strange places...Oh, and I'm REALLY making this up as I go along...

::disclaimer:: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei.

_::lyrics::_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

: : :

_::just what we all need  
more lies about a world  
that never was  
and never will be::_

Tatsumi sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Things were getting stranger in Kamakura: hauntings, zombies, curses...The Kurosaki were truly an unfortunate family. If Tatsumi hadn't disliked Nagare the moment he laid eyes on him, he might have felt pity for the man.

His view of Tsuzuki's young partner was changing with each day spent within his ancestral home. Hisoka had escaped the most horrible pain of his life, even if he had entered one of another kind.

The map of the family line lay on the table in front of him, covered with Watari's books to keep it flat. Strange titles in a mix of katakana and English had kept Tatsumi's attention for the moment it took him to realize that his current partner was perhaps not quite right in the head. _A Study of Computer Motivations: Why Me?_ was the tamest seeming of the group.

He turned back to the map with a sigh. Neatly scrawled kanji met his tired gaze, a meticulous tree climbing from generation to generation and four long scrolls of paper. Male heirs with girl's names, single character lineage from the children of Ren to Nagare's Hisoka. There were far too many only children for his comfort.

_The heir is always male. Surely there must have been first born girls..._

It was tempting just to accept the eccentricities of such an insular family, almost a society unto itself, disregarding the societal assumptions of names. Many families held certain names with high regard; the tree showed the character for Ren several times over the centuries. Hisoka appeared a few times as well...but usually as the second child, casually marked female.

Another painful kink in the investigation stemmed from the lack of records of the female members of the family. The title was handed from father to son, and daughters were left by the wayside, no note of marriage or death. Kurosaki women simply disappeared into history.

Nagare's name appeared on the fourth part of the scroll, next to his brother, Iwao. The name connected by a marriage line was painstakingly inked out in death, Rui-sama's next to it. One character followed: Hisoka.

Nagare respectfully talked around Tatsumi's questions, eager to accept his and Watari's help when it came to dealing with Rui and her demonic pregnancy. Or to bear the wrath of the horrible specter that had crawled from her grave mistakenly seeking vengeance on Tatsumi. The man hoped that the two would either give up or be killed like their predecessor, Hazama-sensei.

The entire deal was becoming too strange. Nagare suspected that the two who had mysteriously shown up at his door "just in time" were not what they seemed. His eyes may be bound, but the secretary was sure he could see more than most mortal beings. It was more than a possession...

Enma Daioh had made this case priority. Tatsumi suspected that it had something to do with Hisoka's arrival in the Meifu as a murdered soul, though nothing had been done up to this point. The boy didn't really have any attachments to the human world beyond a want to find his murderer, but still chose the strange position as shinigami. Apparently what little control had remained on the situation was rapidly dissolving.

Tatsumi jumped in surprise as a mug of coffee was thumped at his elbow, narrowly missing spattering the rice paper map with a shower of black drops. He gave a stern but ineffective glance at Watari, who shrugged in apology. The blonde immediately began to play with the buttons of his lab coat, a sure sign that he was about to reveal something that Tatsumi probably didn't want to hear.

"Enma-sama has requested our presence in the Meifu."

Decades of training kept his face straight and the sudden surge of guilty panic out of his voice. "Is this about Mother?"

Watari shook his head. "The messenger didn't say."

Mother, the super computer that Watari had vague memories of helping to design, was the heart of the JuOhCho. Tatsumi had only a tiny inkling of her true purpose beyond the storage of information. Their failed hacking attempt had roused a rather unhealthy curiosity in both himself and his partner, the former about her existence and the latter about his own past involvement as one of the five Generals.

_Kurosaki-kun's life isn't the only one needing to be unraveled._

Enma would surely know of the failed attempt to raid the database. Tatsumi knew he would have to own up to the act eventually, but...why now?

Though he would never dream of disobeying an order from his god, Tatsumi was hesitant to leave. Nagare was already suspicious; if he found his doctors missing in the middle of the night, he would most likely have them removed and the case would become that much harder.

Watari seemed to read his mind. "No problem, Secretary-chan! I'll hold the fort while you meet with Enma-Daioh."

Tatsumi grimaced as he rose. Why Enma persisted in pairing him with the most genki partners..."Secretary-chan?"

With a knowing wink, Watari ushered Tatsumi away from his chair and sat with mock studiousness. "I'll stare at these kanji some more in case they feel like talking. Go on! I've got you covered."

Tatsumi closed his eyes with a sigh, and was gone a moment later.

Watari chuckled breifly, before turning back to the family tree. He had a moment to miss the comforting presence of 003 before he heard a knock at the door.

"Miya-san?" he said in shock as he slid the shoji back, coming face to face with the distressed maid. Her head was bowed politely, but her breath hitched with sobs. She carried a hand lamp, casting black shadows that made her look more than miserable.

"Please, Watari-sensei...it's Rui-sama..."

Watari smiled gently, nodding in reassurance. "Of course, Miya-san. Just let me gather my things." He turned and collected the large black satchel the he had prepared for the frequent middle of the night emergencies. With a sweeping gesture, he urged Miya ahead of him.

The halls of the cursed home seemed even more menacing in the pale yellow of the lamp than it did in the day. There was no sound beyond their shuffled footsteps. _Though_, Watari reflected as he looked about him, _it's probably fortunate that this family did't invest in the nightingale floors..._Odd artifacts were cast in shadow and then left in the darkness as the two hurried to Rui's chambers.

The doctor was beyond being shocked by anything he saw concerning the Kurosaki matron. Her room was in shambles, everything torn from the bed, and parts of the wood work marred with what appeared to be nail marks. The odd spatter of blood painted the bare floors and walls, the tatami mats having been removed long before. Apparently, Rui had been found one morning by Hazama-sensei trying to eat the reed carpet.

Rui stood in silence at the window, completely nude. Her belly was grossly swollen, larger than it had any right to be. Watari approached carefully, hands raised in a gesture of peace. Her moods were swift, and her madness was quick to surface if provoked.

"Rui-sama," Watari began, only steps away. He kept his voice low and chose his words carefully, speaking to her as if to a child. "Why don't we return to bed? It's a cold night and we wouldn't want to get sick."

It seemed as if this was one of the nights when her meager sanity was clinging to the fore as she turned towards Watari with a miserable smile. "You're right of course, Sensei. I was just waiting for my sister." She sighed deeply, arms wrapping about her abdomen. "She'd be so happy to hear about my son..."

The shinigami made sure his smile never faltered. Rui's hallucinations often involved her long dead twin, whose spirit still haunted the lake just beyond the house. Tatsumi himself had been attacked, mistaken for Nagare because of his clothing. There hadn't been any sign of the yuurei since then, but Watari knew it was only a matter of time.

"Ah, Rui-sama. I'm sure she will be here in time. Please come to bed." He touched her arm gently, worried at the cold, pallid skin. The wasted woman obeyed, returning to her bed in an awkward waddle. Miya had already collected the blankets and reassemble the bed as best she could. The exhausted Rui climbed onto the mattress and allowed herself to be tucked in. Watari turned to leave but was stopped by a skeletal hand on his wrist.

"Sensei, please...when she comes," her voice rasped, her fevered eyes fighting to remain open. "Tell her I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Her voice broke with sobs, and Watari bit back any response. It was not his place to offer the woman forgiveness.

The last empty whisper seemed to hold in the darkness left in the wake of Watari and Miya's retreat. "I'm sorry, Kasane...Hisoka..."

: : :

There were very few in Meifu who could teleport themselves directly to Enma Daioh's personal chambers, since you could only transport by imagining the place you wanted to be. Tatsumi had fixed the image of two great doors in his mind. A breath later and he was there, at the gates to Enma Daioh's personal chambers.

The doors were the only features in what appeared to be a wall of nothing but darkness, opening ponderously as the shadow master approached. Twin giants of molten gold, they writhed with life, figures surging to the surface and submerging again in an eternal dance. The doors themselves seemed alive and Tatsumi could swear that he could see faces grinning as he passed between them into the dark to meet his god.

"Tatsumi-san."

The god's voice was a gentle wind across Tatsumi's senses. His well hidden worries seemed unimportant in the presence of a great and loving god.

"Enma-sama."

Enma chuckled at Tatsumi's never ending formality. Though he had changed from the stiff young man who had attached himself to the whirlwind known as Tsuzuki, Enma could see that he had fitted himself into another role that was becoming dangerously close to drowning Tatsumi's spark of life.

"My friend, how goes your investigation?"

"Slowly, Enma-sama," Tatsumi replied, letting his annoyance into his voice. "Kurosaki Nagare is...suspicious. I believe that it has become more than just an ordinary possession."

Enma sighed deeply. "I suspected as much when Kurosaki-kun came to us. He is so much like Tsuzuki-san..."

Tatsumi knew there was more to the statement than just the fact that both shinigami suffered from dark pasts. He had always suspected Tsuzuki wasn't quite human...

Enma's voice broke into his thoughts. "Tsuzuki-san and Kurosaki-kun will be returning from the Gensoukai. Hisoka has failed to bond with a shikigami." He continued before Tatsumi could comment. "He and Tsuzuki are to be assigned to Kamakura. The Kurosaki case is all important and I need my strongest shinigami on it."

The secretary floundered for a response. To deliberately send someone back into their previous life..."But, Hisoka..."Tatsumi began before stopping himself. He had never questioned the word of Enma before, yet he found himself searching for arguments to keep Hisoka blissfully ignorant behind a desk in the Meifu. He realized that he would give anything to keep Hisoka from ever seeing his family again.

He could feel Enma's patient smile."I'm afraid that I must make an exception in Kurosaki-kun's case. It is time, Tatsumi. The boy has many paths before him, and most lead him home. It is unclear where they made lead after, but I do know that he _must_ return. That's an order."

"Wakarimashita, Enma-daioh." With a bow, Tatsumi simply willed himself from his god's audience.

"This will be interesting to say the least, Enma-sama," came a disembodied voice. Enma sighed at Hakushaku's comment.

"Please watch their candles, Hakushaku-san...protect the flame of their life..."

: : :

Tatsumi appeared his office, sighing at the papers that had piled up in his absence. It was going to get much higher before it was done.

He opened his door, smiling inwardly at Terazuma's shocked face. He enjoyed the small thrill of keeping his employees on their toes. "Wakaba-san? Do you have word from Tsuzuki or Hisoka?"

The blonde smiled, slightly surprised, and nodded. "Hai, Tatsumi-san. We got word from them this morning that they are ready to return."

"Good," Tatsumi interrupted. "Please let me know when you are opening the door."

He didn't wait for a reply. Instead, he shut the door and turned to his desk. He began attacking the pile of paper, organizing his thoughts under the familiar routine of completing forms.

He thought briefly of Watari, still doubtful that the doctor could handle being there without him, though he was sure Enma was keeping a close eye on his partner. Tatsumi also realized that he was more disturbed by what Enma _didn't_ say rather than what he did.

He said nothing of the hacking attempt on Mother. He also hadn't said why it was so important to break a cardinal rule of the shinigami and send Hisoka back to his family.

With a sigh, he rubbed the bridge of his nose and prayed that things couldn't get any stranger than they already were...

_Failure...absolute...why am I so weak?_

It was almost like when the memories of Muraki had come flooding back into my head, my murderer gleefully ellicting every emotion, every image from behind his wall and facing me with the incomprehensible truth. The truth I had forgotten yet sought for...only to be confronted by the one thing I didn't want to admit.

_I failed._

I failed to protect myself, I failed to kill the good doctor time and again...I failed Tsuzuki even as I dragged him back from the edge of eternity.

_I don't want to rely on you to protect me. I hate being so weak..._

And now I'd made the ultimate failure as a Shinigami. Weeks in the Gensoukai and nothing but the suspicion of Sohryuu to show for it. Not one shikigami would stoop to my pitiful level.

"Hisoka? Daijoubu ka?"

No. I'm not all right. _You always get hurt trying to protect me. _I just had an entire world of spirit gods confirm what I'd suspected all along, from the moment my parents locked me away from the world to the instant I selfishly begged him to stay despite his pain.

_I'm a failure._

"I'm fine, baka." That always shuts him up for a while. Any other time I would hope for his insistent probing into my private thoughts but I'm afraid I'd strangle him right now. And I think he knows it.

The air in Tenkuu was tense, a wire waiting to break. Sohryuu was glaring down from his throne, Tsuzuki making his goodbyes to the shikigami he considered family. I stood back, unsure of my place in this world of gods.

Byakko, at least, seemed sad to see me go. He bounded down the stairs and nearly tackled me to the floor. Though I would never admit it, I kind of liked when a shiki touched me. Their emotions were..._different_ to feel and experience. More controlled and soft, unlike the harsh intrusion of human thought.

A couple of rapidly healing ribs were my parting gift from the genki tiger god. Suzaku punched me on the shoulder as she ascended the stairs, in what Tsuzuki hastened assured me was a big sister kind of way. I had to pick myself and my pride off the floor though. For a pitiful moment, I wallow in the theory that they only like me because Tsuzuki makes them like me. It fits my whole failure mood.

Sohryuu was more than happy to see us off. The water dragon waved madly, radiating smugness that the shinigami whose presence was literally ripping his world to pieces was now going home. Empty handed.

_Stupid dragon god..._ I try to pretend that it's annoyance and not jealousy eating away at my heart right now.

I can feel a migraine coming on. We finally make it to the bottom of the stairs after Tsuzuki hugs everything he can get his hands on, gigantic tears glistening in his eyes. With a final embrace with Touda (the snake didn't know quite what to think of that) the door to the Meifu opened.

Wakaba still had her sugary smile plastered on her face, with a hard eyed Terazuma at her back. My meager skill at projecting emotions must be working overtime because even he doesn't have some smartassed remark for either me or my partner.

Hmmm...Terazuma does have a brain when it counts. I can feel the eekings of relief around him, but I can't tell if it's because I failed. Maybe he was scared I'd end up like him...That's it. I'm too tired to wonder if Terazuma has a heart or not.

"I'm going home."

The announcement is met with the usual wave of guilty misery from Tsuzuki and a blessed indifference from Terazuma. Wakaba was just radiating simple happiness (though I can feel the tinges of pity coloring that sunny emotion) and Tatsumi was his usual blank wall.

Matte...Tatsumi?

I hadn't expected the secretary to be here. Another witness to my failure. Tatsumi didn't have a shiki either, but he did have his shadow powers in return, putting him on par with Tsuzuki.

_Unlike me...I don't want to have to depend on you..._

"Home, Hisoka-kun? Yes, in a manner of speaking." Something in the shadow master's voice kept Tsuzuki from jumping onto his former partner's lap in happiness. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was...distracted. A sudden chill crept up my spine as those hard eyes met mine.

"You have a new assignment. You and Tsuzuki are to assist Watari and myself on our current case. Under Enma-daioh's orders."

Well, that's not unusual. Maybe a little welcome. A case would do wonders for taking my mind off that fact that I was a complete failure. However, I could feel something else, the smallest sense of emotion from the normally controlled secretary.

_Fear. For me..._

"Tatsumi-san..."

He rose sharply, extending a manila folder. He all but ignored Tsuzuki. This was important. This was for me.

The chill moved from my spine to my arms as I reached for the folder. I could see the neat kanji denoting the souls involved and the area.

Kurosaki Nagare. Kamakura.

Otou-sama. Home.

_Monster...bastard child...please...okaa-sama...don't leave me in the dark..._

I think I may have screamed in denial as my childhood assaulted my mind. _Enma's orders...he's sending me home..._

I could feel myself falling, knowing that Tsuzuki was rushing to catch me. His concern and worry crushed my shields and sent me spinning into the darkness I had learned to hate as a child.

"Home..." was my last whisper before I let myself go into the void. 


	3. Everybody's Fool 1:03

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.2.0

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

::warning:: SPOILERS!! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from

::author's note:: I don't have any images from Kamakura Hen and thus am forced to make up what I think the Kurosaki House would look like. My traditional Japanese architecture is sketchy at best. And it gets worse from here on in...Angsty reunions and secrets revealed...Oh, and I'm REALLY making this up as I go along...

Picture of disguised Hisoka: http:daemonchan(dot)tripod(dot)com(slash)fanart(slash)misc(slash)miscgal(dot)html

gotoushuu - Master (what Tatsumi calls Nagare in the manga)

::disclaimer:: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei.

::thanks:: ctt, merigold, madiha, leo shinatome, and sharontoggle

_::lyrics::_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

: : :

_::have you no shame?  
don't you see me?  
you know you've got everybody fooled::_

Four years had passed since my death and the emotions were as raw as the day I died. I stared up the hill at my childhood home, waiting for the pang of nostalgia that was conspicuously absent. _Shouldn't I miss my home? What happened to the longing that had marred my three years in the hospital...the childish want to see the house where I'd been born and then imprisoned one last time before I died?_

The house stood overlooking a small town that seemed untouched by time. It had always fascinated me as a child to go about there, comparing it to my brief travels in the more modern Kyoto or Tokyo, and always, somehow, finding the glittering capitals lacking in the grace and history of our town. The people were fiercely loyal to the Kurosaki, trained from birth to be thankful for our protection. I'd been impressed as a child, as every person had something nice to say. I often remember snatches of the compliments..._such beautiful eyes, Kurosaki-sama..._in the dreams that kept me from going mad in my prison.

Years and experience had shredded my appeal for the provincial, and I realized how trapped by that grace and history they were.

The house cast a long shadow down the hill, a two story compound built during the beginning of the samurai era. Everything about the residence was unwelcoming, with sharply angled roofs of traditional tile designed to deter any projectiles. The outer walls were a pale plaster, with large glass windows allowing light into the otherwise bleak seeming residence. I knew that the windows were a fairly new addition to the outside, old picture and paintings of the house showing only solid walls with narrow openings. My tutor had once mentioned something about renovations, but I'd always wondered why the windows were really there. The bamboo reed shades were always down, casting the shadows of black bars along every wall.

The only shoji doors of the the house faced towards the inner garden and courtyard; the main entrance was a double door of new steel marked with the clan crest. The place had become a sort of defunct fortress, the kind reserved for American tourists to ooh and aah over.

A pretty prison for the demon haunted family.

Set in front of a deep black lake surrounded by well manicured trees, the house had once been a treasure of the town. Years in the Kurosaki family had cast a dark miasma over the entire hillside. It was built in a square around a spacious private garden with an ornate shrine rising just behind the main house. Smaller servant housing and the dojo where I had spent much of my time nestled close to the main structure. I purposefully ignored the small cemetery plot I knew was just behind the shrine.

_Okaa-sama...why is my name on the stone?_

I shuddered at that particular memory, asked by a naive child who still had the love of his mother. She had reassured me that it was merely another family member and I'd never asked again.

The entire compound was surrounded by a low wall, sweeping from the mountain rising behind around to the lake. It, too, was a recent (a hundred years or so) addition, more for decoration than anything else. The walls were about six feet in height and perfectly smooth; it served to direct all who sought the Kurosaki to one entrance. We passed through the front gate, me giving the family crest a withering look, following the short road to the house. Another door, twin to the gate, was closed before us. I know that the house was already aware of us; servants' shadows had been passing back and forth across the shades.

Tatsumi stepped up to the wide porch first, standing patiently before the closed doors. I bit back a snort. Those doors would stay closed forever if my father didn't like the face on the other side.

"Are you sure you can do this, Hisoka?"

The question was innocent enough, even if it was the eighth time it had been asked. But, here I was, fighting the urge to run screaming from the elegant house that haunted my darkest moments, from the basement where the chains still clanked in my imagination. The light was always so bright after the hours of darkness...

"We're going back," Tsuzuki announced, fixing Tatsumi's back with an uncharacteristic glare. Tatsumi made no indication that he was even aware of my partner's opinion on the subject. He and I both knew I had no choice in this matter. One did not go about disobeying his god unless he wanted to find himself moving on to a less pleasant level of existence. It was just the small task of getting my feet to move me to the house.

One step forward. The fear was still there, unconquered. I'd faced my own murderer, pulled Tsuzuki from the fires of hell, and yet felt powerless against the past I had tried so hard to forget.

_Will Father know me? Will Mother know me?_

I realized the hopeless stupidity of that thought even as it crossed my mind. And found myself wondering why I couldn't just hate my parents. Why couldn't I hate them for fearing me, hating me, setting into motion that events that would lead to my prolonged and painful death...

I resisted the urge to grab my hair in frustration, settling instead for blinking repeatedly to assure myself that the contacts were still in place. We had carefully transformed the chances of me being recognized. Wakaba had taken great delight in disguising me for this assignment, recruiting the skills of Saya and Yuma. My honey blonde hair had been dyed a dark brown, with a vibrant shade of red and blonde, then cut very close to my head. It was nice to not have the stuff falling in my eyes. A pair of contacts to mask the emerald of my unnatural eyes with a more human brown, thin framed glasses to add the illusion of intelligence and enter Tsuzuki Kyou.

Tatsumi had already prepared our cover, knowing that his excuses would run thin with my father as it was. Tsuzuki and I were to come in as onmyouji, asked to study the horrific specter of my poor aunt, Kasane. Banishing the yuurei she had become was part of our mission as well and one I was not looking forward to. As a ghost, my aunt had nothing after death...

"This place is cursed." Tsuzuki's comment was laced with venom, his arms folded across his chest. I managed a short bark of humorless laughter. Tsuzuki had the good grace to look shamefaced.

"Don't worry about it, baka. I knew that already."

Any further comment from my partner was cut off as the door slid open smoothly and a young girl's head appeared from around it. Mentally, I ducked behind Tsuzuki's shields, afraid that mine would crack if I became shocked.

"Ah, Tatsumi-sensei, I was wondering when you would return. I was worried..." she trailed off as she realized that Tatsumi was not alone. A flash of emotion flitted across my carefully reinforced shields, mostly an intense curiosity. The girl was not one of the servants I remembered, with a young face and trusting manner. Some of the tension left my body as I realized that things had changed in the 6 years I'd been absent from the house. Most of the staff was old when I was just a child.

Tatsumi bowed. "Miya-san. This is Tsuzuki Asato and Kyou, two very skilled onmyouji. I would like to introduce them to Kurosaki-sama. I believe they would be of help "

A deliberate slip on his part, reminding Miya of what had happened to Tatsumi when he'd gone down to the village to investigate, dressed in one of Nagare's kimono. "H...hai, Tatsumi sensei." The flustered girl hurried to cover her shock. "I'll inform Kurosaki-sama. Please enter and irrasshaimase."

_Step. Step. Through the shadow of the door. Tadaima..._

"Okaeri, Hisoka," Tsuzuki hissed through a blindingly fake smile, turning his disarming charm on full force. Miya was already spellbound as she blushed sweetly, falling for the attractive vapidness that drew evil to my partner like flies to...well, you know. I knelt to remove my shoes and touched the fine wood of the raised floor.

_Death. Pain. Sorrow. Revenge._

I snatched my hand back, almost falling over. What had come in the six years since I'd left, first in the hospital and then dead, was worse than anything I'd seen in my childhood years, worse than the constant fear that seeped into the very air. The house bled with evil, an evil that was very patient and very close to its goals.

_Welcome home indeed._

Miya and Tsuzuki began chatting immediately and I was painfully aware of his clever tactic at getting information. No one ever suspected that some form of shrewd intelligence lay behind those startling eyes. I wasn't really listening, merely staring around and trying not to touch anything. Tatsumi walked behind me, quietly observing Tsuzuki. I caught a snatch of conversation as my partner exclaimed in shock.

"His eyes are bound? Is the master blind?" He blurted, unable, or unwilling, to curb his curiosity. Miya blushed and ducked her head away.

"No, Kurosaki-sama's sight seems to be perfectly natural...but his eyes..."

"You'll discover this for yourself, Tsuzuki-san," Tatsumi interuppted, deterring my partner from asking further questions about my father. I sighed inwardly, knowing perfectly well that that information had been in the case file my partner could never be bothered to look at.

_Not that you did either_, my mind supplied helpfully.

_Shut up._

I checked my mental shields again. Maybe I was being anal, but better that than being slowly poisoned from the inside out by the hate and evil haunting every fiber of the house. Tsuzuki's mental buzz was barely discernible from the rest of the mental noise, but at least it hadn't risen above a cocktail whisper. We'd agreed before leaving Meifu that he would supplement my power; I was just glad he'd suggested it. It made my face burn, but I was still grateful for his care.

We were led to a formal meeting room, where we presented ourselves on kneeling pillows. I kept my eyes on the floor, ignoring what was sure to be Tsuzuki's concerned frown.

I heard the soft shush of shoji and the rustle of cloth. I froze painfully as I heard a voice I had only remembered in the dark of my dreams.

Nagare paused, taking in the strangers. "Tatsumi-sensei, please explain."

_::bow down and stare in wonder  
oh, how we love you  
no flaws when you're pretending::_

_-Send them away, Nagare. They are too close to the truth.-_

Nagare ignored the hiss in his mind, a quiet servant drawing the sash to his kimono tight about his waist. He held the ornate silk cloth in fisted hands, staring at his reflection with demon's eyes, yellow and slitted. The manservant studiously kept his eyes on the obi, absorbed in the intricate tying. There was no servant in the house who would dare meet his eyes, bound or no.

He bit back a frustrated sigh. The snake could only repeat the obvious: Tatsumi-sensei and Watari-sensei were here because of the Yatonokami, either to save Nagare or destroy him along with the demon. He no longer cared. The demon would be free to infest another body once Nagare died and Nagare could go to hell in peace.

Pain arced across his back as the demon twisted in annoyance. The servant flinched and hurriedly smoothed the last of the cloth. He disappeared just as quickly, leaving his irate master to argue with the demon in his head.

_-I will bathe in the blood of the Kurosaki!-_

Nagare growled in response, feeling the sweat beading on his forehead. He turned from the mirror to find his maid standing in shock, knuckles white where she gripped the doorframe. He had not heard the shoji screen slide back. His appearance was not new to the staff, but he knew that he was beginning look more like the akuma who possessed him.

"Kurosaki-sama," Miya stuttered, head bowing. "Tatsumi-sensei has brought two gentlemen to see you."

Nagare nodded, ignoring the Yatonokami's dismayed roar. "I will take breakfast after meeting with Tatsumi-sensei. Tell the others I do not wish to be disturbed." He ignored the startled girl, reaching for the length of cloth he used to bind his eyes with an errant hand. "Lead the way, girl."

"Hai." Miya turned and turned back to the waiting room. She slid the screen open further, standing aside and bowing low as the blindfolded patriarch stepped forward. Tatsumi could tell she was upset as she nearly fled from the hall, retreating through Nagare's room.

Nagare was tempted to let the Yatonokami have its way and just kill them all where they knelt, three men come to peer, peek, and expose what his family had worked centuries to hide. "Tatsumi-sensei, please explain."

"Gotoushuu, I hope I have not offended, but after the incident with the ghost at the Kasanekefuchi, I have brought in two expert onmyouji to assist Watari-sensei and myself."

Nagare nodded noncommittally, sure that he would send them away as soon as they finished introductions. The Yatonokami was already hissing with displeasure at the thought of more interlopers. There had never been so many strangers in the Kurosaki home, so many prying eyes.

The first man to stand was tall and striking, with bright violet eyes and a smile that took an accomplished actor to recognize as forced. Involuntarily, Nagare's tongue darted along his lips, tasting the air. Even if he were truly blind, he would have sensed the man's power, the demon blood, an iridescent flame that tempted the power hungry demon within.

"Tsuzuki Asato. Douzo yoroshiku. I will do my best to serve you, Kurosaki-sama." Tsuzuki bowed low, masking his shudder at Nagare's appearance. The man set off his senses like any demon; the Kurosaki head probably wasn't aware what a thin facade his remaining humanity truly was. He caught himself before his hand began to reach for a shielding ofuda.

Nagare bowed slightly before inclining his head to the smaller shadow still kneeling behind Tsuzuki. The younger man stood gracefully, face a study of indifference. He was a slight figure, with beautifully fine features. His hair was a bright shade of red often affected by today's youth, and deep brown eyes that were as empty as his face. Another powerful being, like the first. A demon's half spawn.

"Tsuzuki Kyou. Douzo yoroshiku."

Nagare felt himself smile at the voice, a low hiss of pleasure slithering across his mind from the Yatonokami. What were the chances of two half demons coming into this cursed household? _-Welcome them to our home, Nagare. We may be able to use them.-_

"Welcome to my home, Tsuzuki-san, Kyou-kun," Nagare said, echoing the eager demon. "Please do all you can for my late wife's tragic spirit. I will leave you in Tatsumi-sensei's capable hands."

His smile widened as he watched them leave. The boy glanced back once with his strangely empty brown eyes and hurried to catch up with his brother and the doctor.

"A gift," the patriarch hissed, the demon's voice his own. "Yes, a most fortuitous gift," Nagare laughed. "One I will not allow to slip through my fingers."

: : :

I fled from my father's presence, his sickening smile burned into my mind. _My fate!_ That could have been my fate, to stare in the mirror everyday and fight the demon within...to pray for a son to release myself from the curse...

I suddenly felt the urge to retch. I knew the way to the guest quarters better than Tatsumi, and left the group behind. I could hear Tsuzuki's protest, but shut it out. The strength that Tsuzuki had lent faded with them as well. The house began clamoring in my mind as soon as Tsuzuki was out of sight.

The halls were nothing but a blur as I ran. The guest rooms were at the back of the house, another modern addition, since the Kurosaki clan rarely received visitors. Thankfully I didn't have to dodge any servants. I wasn't capable of doing much more than handling the directions of straight and turn.

And so here I was, running from the thing my father had become since my death. From the malignant presence that had taken down my shields without conscious thought. Though Tsuzuki thankfully bore the brunt of the impressions. I'd have to thank him later. When life was coming down about my head.

I had faced down demons, vampires, my own murderer and my father still had the power to scare me witless.

I skidded to a halt, sneakers catching on the wood floor. Tatsumi's room was open, and I barely made it to the adjoining bathroom before I began emptying my stomach.

I could still feel the demon, my powers answering a silent call. I had recognized something in that room. I felt , with the darkness that consumed my father's soul.

_Oh, Enma...that could have been _me!

My stomach heaved again, though it was more than empty. I sensed my partner's arrival, with Tatsumi a respectful distance away.

Tsuzuki hovered nervously, wanting to touch me to make sure I was okay. The last thing I needed was his over-protectiveness rubbing against my raw shields right now.

The thought of my shields sent me face down back into the bowl. I hadn't been in my father's presence for more than a minute and I felt...violated. Tainted, unclean...The man exuded evil strongly enough that anyone even remotely sensitive would be knocked on his ass by the force of it.

There was no difference between them. My father and the demon.

"He knows," I whispered, suddenly sure that my father hadn't been fooled by the dye and contacts. My father was no longer human, not entirely. His weakness had allowed the Yatonokami almost complete freedom.

Tsuzuki knelt at my side, shields at their highest. "I know. I told Tatsumi this wouldn't work."

I could feel the edge of hysterics and I sat back from the bowl. My partner handed me a wet cloth and I wiped the remains of breakfast from my mouth. "He has his orders."

Me, defending Tatsumi to Tsuzuki. His number one fan. Maybe if I told myself "Enma made me do it" enough, the queasiness would go away.

"No, it's not just that..."

I looked over at my partner, knowing he had something to share that I would most likely not want to hear. And from the martyred look on his face, he wasn't going to tell me without a verbal brow beating.

"Out with it, baka. What is it?"

Tsuzuki stood, too quickly, trying to escape my question. For once I wished I was strong enough to just rip through some of his barriers and get at his thoughts. He made it as far as the door before stopping, shoulders dropping in defeat.

"We're marked..." He whispered.

I had an intelligent response. "Nani?"

He turned with sudden anger, reaching my side in two long strides. "Marked!" he whispered harshly, face a breath away from my own. "We're marked! Demons will know us for what we are! We are not human!"

The silence that followed his words seemed to swallow me. _Am I human?_ I could hear those words echo in my mind, first in Tsuzuki's voice then my own. "No." Had my partner just confirmed what my parents had been telling me as a child? "No. I'm as human as you are..."

The violet eyes softened. "You are just like me, Hisoka. A descendant of darkness."

I could feel myself shaking. Everything seemed to be moving into place, my memories sorting themselves into a parade of evidence to prove Tsuzuki's words. My father always so distant, as if he could see something about me the others could not. The wince around his eyes whenever he said my name. The terror in my mother's heart...

Tsuzuki's voice seemed to be distant. "Your father isn't truly human anymore. The demon inside him has turned him into nothing but a shell."

Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes, but I held the conviction that I was finished shedding tears for my father. "I'm not sure my father was ever human to begin with."

Without asking, I felt Tsuzuki's arms slip about my shoulders. My shields dissolved at the touch, but it was nice to let them go. Tsuzuki's were enough for us both. A sense of comfort and safety filled my mind and for once I welcomed it. I hadn't realized how much I relied on my partner, his emotions, when my own became too much to bear.

"When..." My voice cracked. I wanted to hold Tsuzuki until the pain went away. Until I could forget the fact that I knew I was a demon all along.

"Since you held your gun at my back. You knew me too, though you didn't know why."

I laughed. I often wondered why I'd chosen this baka out of an entire crowd of people. True, I had been following him, but I couldn't have lost him if I'd tried. There had been something even then that drew me to Tsuzuki's side. At the time I assumed it was because he was a soulless bloodsucker, but quickly revised that opinion to sloppiest shinigami in the division.

"Hm." Tatsumi stood quietly in the doorway. Normally I would have pulled away from Tsuzuki quick enough to warm myself with the friction, but at that moment I couldn't have cared less who caught me in his arms. I wanted someone to hold me and I hadn't realized until I got back to my house that it wasn't the touch of my parents I'd been missing.

The secretary went back into the room proper, giving me a much needed minute to clean up. Tsuzuki hovered nervously, and I had to slap his hands away more than once. But the usual annoyance wasn't really in it; I did it for the sake of something familiar, something to cling onto. We joined Tatsumi, a glance revealing that my father had given the shinigami pair one of the more modern guest rooms, resembling a more western bedroom. (And, luckily, the adjoining bathroom I'd just christened with lunch.) Tsuzuki took a chair at the desk and I sat on the immaculately made bed that looked much safer than the tangle of sheets and paper that was obviously Watari's bed.

"I do not believe that your father knows it is _you_, Kurosaki-kun. He sees only a half demon onmyouji, with power that could be exploited. No matter how inhuman he seems, he still sees with the mind of a man. Dead sons don't walk back in the door."

I sat quietly, fixing Tatsumi with an accusing stare. "You knew, didn't you? About me?"

Tatsumi seemed to pause before answering. "No. I suspected from the information given to me by Kanoe-kachou and Enma-sama." He leaned against Watari's desk. "I knew Tsuzuki. I could see similarities from the day you arrived in the JuOhCho."

I sighed, feeling the anger slip from me. "I guess I knew as well." _And I'd fought so hard to convince Tsuzuki he was human. I had no right..._

"We're bait," Tsuzuki stated, putting Enma's orders in a new light. "Without an heir, the demon might very well die with Nagare. The demon would give anything to have the body of a powerful half breed."

_Enma knew the Yatonokami would be unable to resist me. Or Tsuzuki. With two of us here, the demon would become greedy, prone to mistakes. We could draw it out and finish it once and for all._

That thought turned my shocked confusion at Enma's thinking into the uncomfortable feeling of being used. Then again, I don't know that I would have come back here if asked.

"Konnichiwa, minna!" came the cheerful call as Watari stormed into the room, making a beeline for his bed. With a dramatic sigh, he fell face first onto the paper and book covered mattress, raising a small cascade of paper. We were all shocked for a moment, but Tatsumi beat us to the question that we all had on our minds.

"Where have you been?"

Watari didn't move. "Mmmph phum hmm mmph!" The answering silence must have clued the good doctor in to the unintelligibility of his response. His head turned slightly. "Attending to Rui-sama. She's still having hallucinations."

"Mother," I whispered. I felt strangely empty as I said the word, as if that was all it was to me. Just another word with nothing to attach to it. Watari sat up, seeming to notice Tsuzuki and I for the first time.

"Yes, bon. Your mother. Enma save us all." His cheerfulness dissolved and he removed his glasses to look me in the eyes. "Rui-sama is dying." 


	4. Everybody's Fool 1:04

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.2.0

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

:warning: SPOILERS! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from theria(dot)net.

:author's note: I've moved events around to suit myself. It's hard for me to get a sense of time without going back and digging through Gensoukai and Kamakura translations. So, Tatsumi has already been attacked by Kasane, they have already attempted to hack into Mother, but they have not had contact with Iwao yet. And it gets worse from here on in...Oh, and I'm REALLY making this up as I go along...

gotoushuu - Master (what Tatsumi calls Nagare in the manga)

Hazama Rinko - previous doctor who 'died' mysteriously

:disclaimer: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei.

:thanks: melrose stormhaven, hikari-neko, osmalic, yanagi-sen, mistyeyes, rulerofthecrows

_:lyrics:_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

- - - -

_:but now I know she  
never was and never will be:_

"Rui-sama is dying."

I could feel everyone's eyes on me as they waited for my reaction to Watari's not-so-subtle announcement of my mother's impending death. To tell the truth, I was rather curious how I would react myself. I knew what I _should_ feel...I'd become familiar with that kind of loss working cases with Tsuzuki. I'd seen the children grieve as we led the soul of their parent into the peace of the afterlife, felt the gaping sadness where a loving figure had once been.

But about something so personal...When I'd first come to Meifu, blissfully ignorant of my murder, I had clung to the despairing hatred that my parents had left me to die all alone, trying not to give into the the momentary fever dreams of a caring mother and father who cried over my wasted body and still mourned my soul.

All this time apart...it had really been like they were already dead.

Another moment and I realized that I wasn't feeling anything. Blessed numbness. The grief was there at the very edges of my mind, but distant, the same sliver of sadness I had at seeing my father in such a pitiful state. I still hadn't decided if I felt sorry for him, or slightly happy that he was meeting a fate that matched the sins of his life.

I'd trained myself for years, trying to prevent such emotions from controlling me, from making me as human as the rest of the world. I'd had nothing better to do in my prison but practice shutting off my own feelings...something that I once believed would make my parents love me again. Emotions meant hurt, hurt meant pain, and I'd had enough to last me another lifetime. I would deal with it later.

When I could face that fact that I still loved the woman who called me her son and a demon in the same breath.

Maybe a few decades from now.

Their eyes were still trained on my face. "What?" I asked petulantly, pleased when even Tatsumi turned away in embarrassment. "What do you want from me? Tears? 'Oh, god, no, not my mother?'" By the stunned silence, I knew I had crossed a line with that one.

Tsuzuki looked the most hurt by my seeming lack of reaction. Baka, always feeling more for others than himself. I knew he would take all my pain for me if he could, but I still hadn't managed to convince him that I would do the same for him.

Thankfully Tatsumi stepped in to change the subject, another aspect of his understanding. Tsuzuki had held onto his pain for a good 70 years; I could keep mine for a few days.

"Are you sure? Hazama-sensei should have been able to tell at least that much."

Watari jumped forward, eager to break the tension, reaching to snag a book from the desk behind Tsuzuki. He slid his glasses back on, letting them set at the end of his nose. I wasn't sure if that made him look cute or crazy.

I frowned slightly as I read the spine, realizing it was a register of the household, a list of servants and other people who had been employed in the house through the years. Many of the townsfolk were proud to know their names had graced its pages for centuries.

"Well, before Hazama-sensei's...accident, Rui-sama was in decidedly better condition. The worst of the pregnancy began near the end of the good doctor's tenure here...like there was a sudden hurry to bring the whole thing to a close."

"My father." The words had slipped past my lips, rasping with my fear dried throat. Pieces to my family's puzzle were slipping quickly into place and the picture it formed wasn't pretty.

"Yes, bon," Watari agreed, flipping through the book. He stopped on one of the last pages, the register for the past year.

"What Rui-sama is suffering...it is a very difficult process. It requires sacrifices and powerful black magic. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to bring a demon into the Chijou." He paused, finger pointing to names. "Three servants disappeared within a three month period about the same time as Rui-sama's pregnancy began."

"The Yatonokami killed them to bring a demon across," Tsuzuki said, his eyes becoming grim as he also began to understand the fully twisted truth about the Kurosaki.

Tatsumi finished the thought forming. "And with a demon in a human body, the Yatonokami would simply move in and destroy the soul, giving him another body." The sliver of a grimace reached his lips. "A body that wouldn't be as vulnerable as Kurosaki-kun's had been."

Watari's face was grim as he closed the book. "Miya-san hasn't been the most forthcoming about information concerning your father, but I have gathered that more servants have been 'running away' from the estate in the last few months." He used his fingers to stress the lie my father had spun with the household. "She thinks they were frightened by what's been happening with Rui-sama. I think the Yatonokami has gotten impatient."

I met his eyes, determined to face every word he had to say. "Your mother won't survive the birth. The demon will tear itself through her body to reach this world."

I bit back the hysterical laugh that threatened from my lips. For all the hell, I think I owe Muraki some kind of thank you...

Still, this nagged at me. Something this big must have alerted _someone_ in the Meifu. Three souls devoured for the sake of merging human cells and a demon soul. More people dead to feed the spell that allowed the spawn to survive the merging until birth. "Why didn't we catch this before?"

"The souls were recorded in the Kiseki and turned up for judgment. Apparently, it was merely the force of their deaths needed and not the actual soul," Watari answered. "I even had the Gushoshin double check. Apparently, the deaths were made to appear as either natural or accidental, and there was no spell residue."

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. A slow migraine was starting just behind my left eye and I didn't think I could take any more shocks about my family. Murderer was a new title to tack onto my father's long list of shitty-things-I-did-in-life.

I made my way to the furthest wall, leaving the others to their quiet suspicions and assumptions. I shoved my hands deep in my pockets, an old posture that I used to warn people to keep away. I knew I looked like I was pouting, but kami knew I had every right. _What the hell am I doing here?_

Tsuzuki stepped forward until I could feel him brushing my shoulder. His fingers came up to rest gently on my shoulder. "Baka! What are you doing?" I hissed, not really in the mood...for anything. Not his platitudes, not Watari's announcements, and not Tatsumi's quiet stoicism.

"Are you okay?"

No. Yes. What was the question again? I shrugged miserably, hoping to dislodge his comforting touch. No such luck. His fingers were expert at snagging unguarded sweets faster than the eye could follow, of course they wouldn't just slide off my shoulder.

I barely noticed as Tatsumi and Watari took their leave, the doctor waving encouragingly, shoji door sliding shut with a whisper. They had long ago accepted our behavior born of the desperation to save my partner from the flames. Never beyond such light and needed touches, but never back to the cold and loneliness.

Tsuzuki's hand spun me gently, allowing me to see his anguished eyes. Those cursed eyes...amethyst and emerald...

I didn't realize I had been slowly inching back from him until my knees hit the edge of Tatsumi's bed. He smiled, evilly, I'd say, and pushed me back onto the bed. I squeaked indignantly, but couldn't really fight back as I sank into the mattress.

He didn't even look sorry as he knelt beside me, effectively trapping me. "I recognize that squeezing-the-bridge-of-your-nose thing you do," he explained, giving an unflattering impression. "You're getting a headache and if you don't take a nap soon, you'll get all whiny."

Oh, pot and kettle...

I couldn't even articulate as I spluttered in anger. I pushed myself up, suddenly less than three inches from his face. Then it wasn't anger but indignation as a charmingly apologetic smile crossed his lips. Dammit! He knew I had no defense against that eerily sexy kind of look.

He sat at my side and I made no move as his hand brushed the hair from my forehead. My will turned to microwaved Jello whenever he was that gentle...My world had narrowed to him and his presence, the cooling touch of his mind against mine.

Tsuzuki never broke contact and continued to pet my hair. I melted back into the soft mattress as his mind slid across mine. It was a coping mechanism we had come to rely on. Though my shields were much better than when I had first begun in the Shokan division, they were nothing compared the steel and concrete of my partner's mind. When things became too much, he would take over for me, letting my concerns turn to rest instead of trying to protect myself.

"You don't have to be strong all the time."

I smiled at the familiar admonition. "Yes I do. You can't solve cases by eating all the sweets in Japan."

"But I can try," he quipped back. His smile faltered. "I know this is hard. Maybe harder than facing down Muraki. He only killed you...your parents betrayed you. The only people in the world you're supposed to be able to trust." He sighed and trailed fingertips across my eyelids, shutting them. "But we're here for you. _I'm_ here for you."

His mind was cool, in contrast to his body. It was soothing and comforting...everything I'd ever thought I'd wanted from my parents. Whatever I thought I needed from them, I already had.

"Oyasumi, 'Soka..."

And I melted into the darkness of sleep, comforted by the man at my side.

_:i know the truth now:_

Tsuzuki appeared a few minutes later, sliding the door behind him. The look in his eyes was priceless, one that Tatsumi would have given anything for at one time. _Content...and happy. Why couldn't I be that for you?_

He shrugged off such thoughts, moving down the hall from his room. Kurosaki's suffering was a necessary evil; Enma rarely hinted at the destinies of his shinigami, but he had revealed much more in Hisoka's case. Tatsumi fought to agree with his God; good or no, Hisoka was needed here.

"Oh, Tsuzuki-san!" came a happy whisper as Miya turned the corner, tray laden with sweets balanced in her hands. "I was hoping..." She trailed off as she realized that her intended target wasn't alone.

Tatsumi stepped forward, the courtly manners drilled into him by his noble born mother just as charming as Tsuzuki's puppy dog eyes. He bowed deeply, much more than he would have normally, flattering the lowly maid. "Miya-san. We cannot thank you enough for what you have done. I would ask one more favor of you."

"S-sensei," she stuttered, re-balancing her tray. "Please allow me to apologize. I was afraid that Tastumi-sensei would hold me responsible for the accident at the Kasanekefuchi..."

The secretary nodded slightly. "Miya-san. We need a quiet place to talk...and your presence if you are not needed elsewhere."

The girl nodded again, looking much like a shocked jpop fan standing too close to her favorite star. "Thi...this way, Tatsumi-sensei, Watari-sensei." A shy pause. "Tsuzuki-san..."

Miya led the three investigators with sure steps to an unlit room, only a door down and across the hall from their own quarters. Sliding the shoji back with an expert foot, she moved inside. There was a dull shush as she set her bamboo tray down and the hall was suddenly illumined by a soft yellow light. Miya's hand appeared briefly, inviting them in.

The room was a reverse copy of their own, empty but well kept. The twin beds seemed to be freshly made and the sparse furniture was free of dust. Miya had set her tray on a small table by the door, next to a burning oil lamp.

The maid herself had taken a seat at the desk, chair turned to face the door. Her face was somber, as if all they had known of her previously was merely an act. Her hands were clutched tightly in her lap. The shinigami each picked a bed, with Tatsumi closing the shoji behind him.

Miya kept her eyes trained on the floor, unable or unwilling to meet their inquisitive gazes. "My duties are complete for now...unless Rui-sama has an attack." She sighed deeply. "I know why you have come."

"Nagare," Tatsumi agreed shortly, heartened to see her returning nod. "What's been happening, Miya-san?"

Miya sighed deeply. "It all began with Hisoka-sama..."

"Hisoka?" Tsuzuki queried, sitting forward with interest. Tatsumi stepped towards the maid, eyes hidden behind an opaque glare from the lamp.

"Nagare's son?"

Miya waved her hand. "No, sensei. You misunderstand me. Hisoka-sama was the daughter."

Tsuzuki turned so quickly his back cracked in protest. Watari nodded eagerly as if something had fallen into place for him. "The family tree...generations of first born sons...with the names of first born daughters..."

The girl nodded miserably, and the shinigami could see tears shining down her cheeks. "Kaasan...she served the Kurosaki all her life, and Obaasan. I grew up in this house...but never really knew what went on here.

"Until Kaasan was killed."

Miya finally looked up, teeth gritted with bitter anger. "The servants started to disappear. Soon Kaasan and Tomi-chan were the only two left to serve Rui-sama. Kaasan said it was because everyone else was terrified of what was happening to Rui-sama, but I don't think she believed it.

"And then...one night...sh-she," Miya's sobs broke her words, "Kaasan never came home. Kurosaki-sama came to me the next day, saying he had sent her away to work for his brother. B-but, she never returned!" She began to cry openly, her body shaking with the force of her grief. "I took her place. I worked for Kurosaki-sama as Rui-sama's attendant. The disappearances stopped then."

Tsuzuki had gone dangerously still, and Tatsumi touched his shoulder. "You said it began with Hisoka," he prompted. Miya's sobs subsided as she continued.

"What I know I heard as rumors from my mother. She was training under Grandmother to take care of Kasane-sama. She had worked in the kitchens before that.

"Kasane was so happy, she said. Both she and Kurosaki-sama were ecstatic to have this child. They were so proud the day she was born..."

"She?" Watari whispered, but was silenced by a sharp look from Tatsumi. Miya was slowly confirming what the shinigami had so far only suspected or surmised.

"That same day, Kurosaki-sama's brother came. Kurosaki-sama had been sent out of the village on other business. No one knew what happened behind the doors of Kasane-sama's private rooms, but Mother remembers a lot of crying and shouting as Iwao-sama left. Kasane-sama was left to my grandmother's care. She was inconsolable."

Tsuzuki was beginning to see the inevitable conclusion of the other Kurosaki's visit. "Did he take the child?"

Miya threw herself into Tsuzuki's lap with a sharp cry. "Yes! He t-took Hisoka-sama! Mother never knew why. She had been told the child was stillborn." She sniffled, her voice cracking. "But, 'Kaasan swore she heard an infant's cry..."

Too shocked to speak, the shinigami allowed the girl to cry herself out. Her sobs were reduced to short sniffs and she kept a strong grip on the cloth of Tsuzuki's slacks.

"Kasane-sama...she killed herself soon after. Kurosaki-sama was inconsolable for a time, weeping at Hisoka-sama's grave for hours. It wasn't too long after that Rui-sama came to live in the house to help care for Kurosaki-sama. They were married one month later."

"Hisoka-san was born just after that. I was very young the first time I met him, maybe about four. He always seemed like a very sad little boy. Such beautiful green eyes.

"That was the last I saw of him. I was moved into the kitchens and Hisoka-san was with his tutors most of the time. Soon, he was kept just in the house, in his room. And the day he became sick..."

This part of the story they knew, from Hisoka's own painful recollections. Tsuzuki quieted Miya was a gentle hand on her head. Tatsumi helped her to her feet, handing her a kerchief.

"You have been invaluable to us, Miya-san. Please return to your duties now."

The maid bowed slightly and left the room, but left the tray that Tsuzuki attacked as soon as the shoji closed behind her. He moved to the desk that Miya had occupied, tray in hand. "Look! Bon-bons!"

Watari was the first to speak, speaking in a careful manner that indicated that he was thinking hard about what had been revealed. "That explains a lot of things."

"Yes," Tatsumi agreed almost wearily. "This family is guilty of atrocities that have been occurring for centuries. Boys with girls name. Because they were born second...all to cover the curse."

Tsuzuki looked up from his snacks. "And after Hisoka died, there was no one left to carry on the curse." He frowned. "I wonder if he ever knew he had a sister?"

The secretary bowed his head, unusually somber. "Let's pray he did not, Tsuzuki."

_:look, here she comes now:_

"Rui..."

There was the slow drip of water. A subtle stench wafted through the room, the rot of water choked weeds and algae.

"Rui...Rui..."

There was another, lower sound below the choked whisper. Something was being dragged wetly, and seemed to slow the progress of whatever was speaking.

Kurosaki Rui opened her eyes slowly, unwilling to wonder if it were reality or another of her fever dreams she would be facing. She knew the voice; it had haunted her for almost two decades and had been her onetime companion before that horrific time.

"Sister?" she gasped as her eyes came into sharp focus on the water limned visage of her twin, the long drowned Kasane. Moonlight from the rice paper screens cast ink black shadows across the remains of the yuurei, face barely recognizable from the years of being in water. The body was swollen and blue, hair trailing limply over shoulders. Her hands were at her sides, gripping something. Another step into the brighter light and Rui gagged.

It was a weed covered doll, a toy that Hisoka had never been given a chance to play with.

One thing she recognized immediately about her sister was the thick kimono tangling the rotted body, obi half undone and sliding across the wood floor. The spirit left a trail of black water...which Rui could only imagine as blood in the half light.

"I've missed you...Rui..." The voice was a hard to hear above the hammering of her heart, but Rui didn't have to understand what her sister was saying.

"Kasane...please...Hisoka..." Rui cut off the last phrase as her sister's dead eyes gleamed with hatred. The yuurei had come to visit those who had sinned against her in life and to have the vengeance that would allow her soul to rest.

Emaciated hands rose to her chest, Kasane miming the rocking of a child in her arms. She continued to approach her bed-ridden sister, pausing as her legs touched the wood frame of the opulent bed. Rui thrashed on the sheets, body trapped by the great size of her belly. Still, her sister's arms moved gently and Rui could do nothing but watch the horrific pantomime of Kasane's most tragic moment.

Suddenly the blue grey hands leapt out, fingers curled into claws. They wrapped around Rui's neck and proceeded to crush the life from her.

And she screamed.

- - - -

Tsuzuki let out a despairing cry and his head crashed down onto the desktop. Tatsumi smiled as the older man jumped back up with a shout of pain.

"Itai...all this thinking makes my head hurt."

Watari wanted to comment that the collision with the table probably hadn't helped, but just smiled instead. Miya had long since departed, her tray emptied of its treats. She had been able to shine light on a few mysteries...and create a few more.

"Is it thinking that makes you hurt or has your cast iron stomach finally succumbed to the sugar acid?"

Tsuzuki adopted his inu form, a depressing frown on his too cute face. "Mou, hidoi na..." The hurt inu form disappeared in a flash of seriousness. "Do you hear that?"

The secretary didn't bother to ask what the other was talking about. Tsuzuki had always shown uncanny abilities, such as hearing a candy wrapper from across the bureau, or smell donuts before they had come into the building. He closed his eyes and listened hard. Nothing...wait...the subtle clack of wood on wood, the whisper against rice paper walls...

They were all three at the door, peering through a meager crack. They watched as Hisoka staggered sleepily from their room, and started down the hall. Tsuzuki started to follow when Tatsumi grabbed his shoulder, making the other man wince. "He's sleep walking. Don't wake him. Let's see where this goes."

A tense nod was all Tsuzuki could manage. The trio kept a curious silence and careful distance, watching Hisoka weave almost dangerously about, lost in the dream of a memory. They watched the wandering as his passed the entrance and made his way to the master quarters of his parents. He stopped suddenly, one foot poised to take another step.

"Okaasama?"

- - - -

_The door was unlocked at sundown, leading from a silver touched darkness to darkness of another, deeper black. It was the hall leading into the main house...I just want to see my mother..._

_Darkness is nothing to me. I know the way around every corner of the house, as blind as I have been, locked away until darkness falls._

_Everything is different now, unnaturally quiet. My bare feet make no sound on the polished wood floors and I can't even hear my own heartbeat._

_Her door is closed, like always. I haven't the courage to even call her name..._

_There is something on the floor here...silver and black. My foot steps into a drop of it and I stop. It feels like ice water and I shiver violently._

_Kami-sama...what is that feeling? Evil..._

"Okaasama?"

My eyes snapped open, breaking the somnolent journey that had taken me to the threshold of my mother's room.

Someone grabbed my shoulders as I began to collapse. My knees hit the floor with a jarring shock. Familiar presences surrounded me, invading my unprotected mind. Tatsumi and Watari stood in front of me, their minds almost dull compared to the brightness of Tsuzuki and the tight grip he had on my upper arms.

"Itai..." I didn't have to finish before three different barriers slammed up. I gasped in relief, but still couldn't make my body obey my mind.

"What the hell are you doing here, bon?"

_Here? My mother..._What I knew and what came out of my mouth were quite out of sync. I couldn't seem to reclaim the body that had gone wandering in sleep. "I came to see Mother. The door was open..."

Something tore through my body then, and I gasped just as a horrific scream rang across the household.

_absolute terror...god, don't kill me...sister..._

My own voice echoed the scream as her feelings were absorbed into the very walls of her prison.

"Rui-sama..." Watari whispered and burst through the door. Tatsumi was close at his heels, moving at a speed reserved for pulling Tsuzuki out of harm's way.

I hadn't had a chance to even twitch before I felt Tsuzuki's breath on my ear, concern slipping through his shields. "Stay," he ordered, his voice harder than I could ever remember hearing it. At any other point, I would have fought back and insisted on attempting to free myself of the need to have others look out for me, but I couldn't disobey that one harsh word.

Without being told, he began to synchronize with me, his well practiced shields scaffolding the crumbled remains of my own. It's a good thing that breathing is an automatic function. My mind was a collection of frayed thoughts and tangent emotions and good for nothing at the moment. Tsuzuki was not only supporting me physically, but mentally as well.

Mother's pain had cleared my mind, and then proceeded to crawl into my head and bring the migraine back with a vengeance. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood, but found I couldn't move.

"It hurts to be here," I managed, a harsh laugh hiccoughing from my throat. Four years had done wonders for my empathy. Vague impressions had become sharp images, and whispers became complete thoughts. Only now, it felt like the walls were pouring all the sadness and misery they had endured into me.

I closed my eyes, relaxing into his body. He was always so warm, so soft, so safe..._Tsuzuki..._

- - - -

_:it never was and never will be:_

"Enma..." Watari whispered as he pushed at the shoji, wincing as it cracked, rice paper tearing. He slowly realized that Tatsumi's hand was over his own, adding force to the unfortunate door.

The scientist swore again upon seeing the empty room. He would have shouted his curse, gone to the center garden and screamed it to anyone within a five mile radius and perfect hearing...anything to release some of his pent up frustration.

Nothing. Nothing but silver and black colors, the room washed by the streaming moonlight. Nothing but Rui-sama, her arm pointing at a specter only she could see, arm rigid with fear. She looked ghastly, her eyes sunken and impossibly wide, the sharp angles of her starved form accented by ink black shadows. Black bars of the shoji door leading to the inner courtyard cast the effect of a prison...one from which the pitiful creature writhing on the bed would never escape.

Watari stepped into the room, hands raised to show the hysterical matriarch that he meant her no harm. Not that his care would have mattered; he didn't think the woman was even aware of where she was.

"Onee-sama," was her last whisper before passing out, slumping into her bedclothes. The sheets were shredded in places where her desperate clawing had been enough to tear the cloth.

"Watari-san," Tatsumi whispered, still close behind. A long arm came over his shoulder, drawing the blonde's attention to the floor.

Wishing he had thought to bring a lamp on their search for the somnambulant Hisoka, Watari stepped further in, until he caught glints of moonlight on the floor. It seemed to be small puddles of water, black with silt.

Strange black puddles that eerily resembled footprints. 


	5. Everybody's Fool 1:05

Many apologies for the lateness. First there was school and then this monster kept getting longer and longer. It is now two shorter parts, the other of which is 50 complete. Thank you for your patience.

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.1

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

:warning: SPOILERS! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from theria(dot)net.

:author's note: PLEASE GO BACK AND RE-READ PARTS 2-4! There was a tiny plot exposition that I added. You won't be lost if you don't go back...much...Forgive the shikigami scene. I don't know the summoning charm, and I haven't seen pictures of Sohryuu beyond what's in my character books. The events with Tsuzuki/Tatsumi, and Watari/Hisoka are relatively simultaneous. Oh, and I'm REALLY making this up as I go along...

kagetsukai-shadow master; Tatsumi

:disclaimer: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei. Shikigami summoning chants are mine.

:thanks: yanagi-sen, rulerofthecrows (ubercow ), osmalic, penny, mistyeyes, ann, elle fatex, pheonix-maker

kara angitia: sorry, totally TsuSoka or i would have just left them in the Gensoukai

melrose stormhaven: it took a bit of reading and re-reading to figure out myself. from what i could discern, Kasane jumped into the lake just after the daughter was killed. Nagare then married Rui and had the angsty green eyed boy we all love because of the need for a male heir.

:additional note: my mailing list was erased by yahoo. if you were on that list, please resubcribe...onegaishimasu...

_:lyrics:_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

- - - -

"I give up!" Watari cried as he pushed back from the desk. The family maps had been abandoned for a few odd contraptions that looked like escapees from an unwatched junkyard. Watari had taken a sample of the muddy water, and was now trying to analyze it with what equipment he had. He bemoaned the fact that there was only so much he could do on the human plane; much of his best equipment worked _only_ in Meifu. In fact, he had a certain little analyzer name Beatrice that would have broken down the spiritual contents of the water faster than Tatsumi could complain about the cost of building her.

There were also certain items that Enma forbade him ever take from his lab. Now, Watari wasn't above a little insubordination at times, but this particular edict wasn't a battle he wanted to fight.

He would have kept complaining, voicing his aches and frustrations, mainly the cramps in his bottom from hours in the uncomfortable chair, but a steady purple glare reminded him of punishment for disturbing the sleeping form of their youngest member. The scientist had no real desire to irk Tsuzuki; something about being reduced to ash in the time it took him to blink curbed his usual responses.

It had taken hours to calm the fevered dreams, the anguished cries for a mother to love him. Tsuzuki had taken up the task without a word, perched at his partner's side. Hisoka's collapse seemed to have touched something within Tsuzuki; much like a mother bear and cub. Probably just as vicious.

They hadn't been to sleep yet, and the evening's activities had made the days run into a string of hours. Everything was coming fast now, years of clandestine preparations reaching fruition. The grisly history revealed to them by Miya had filled in a lot of the blank spaces...and why the demon was suddenly so desperate.

It was now nearing dawn when Watari's laptop began to trill a polyphonic 'Vanilla'. Grinning sheepishly, he opened the computer and brought up his communications window. "It's from Gushoushin."

"Investigators, it has been brought to our attention that the soul of Kurosaki Kasane was present for judgment just after her death. Her records were lost until my brother and I made a thorough search for them. Whatever haunts the lake is not yuurei.

"Enma-sama has issued an order that you are to bind whatever demon _is_ in that lake, and question it for connections to the Yatonokami. Ganbatte!" Watari finished, his voice a striking imitation of the Gushoushin's.

The order pushed Tatsumi to immediate action. "Tsuzuki, you're with me," the somber secretary announced, hard blue eyes shocking away Tsuzuki's protest.

The kagetsukai gestured to the still sleeping Hisoka. "Watari will stay here." His eyes never left Tsuzuki's, willing his former partner to see the wisdom in leaving Hisoka behind. "I need you on this, Tsuzuki. Kasane, the demon, has had nearly two decades to gain power. It may be the key to the Yatonokami itself."

Tsuzuki's spine recovered itself. "She's not the worst problem here! Nagare..."

"Will be dealt with in due time." Tatsumi could not have explained how he knew, but he was sure that the time for Nagare was not now. Their God had given an order, and they must trust that Enma had the greater good in mind.

Watari broke the palpable tension that had sprung between the former partners. "I'll care for Bon, Tsuzuki..."

The look on Tsuzuki's face indicated that he knew that he didn't have much choice in the matter. Hisoka wasn't likely to recover for hours yet...and any edge they could gain against the possessed Nagare...

With a final check to make sure that his partner was actually sleeping, not trying to fool them, Tsuzuki strode to the door, brushing past Tatsumi. Watari smiled encouragingly to the secretary, but Tatsumi still frowned. How he wished Tsuzuki could let go of their past...

_When he himself could not?_ A derisive laugh accompanied the thought and Tatsumi followed Tsuzuki's retreating form into the hall. The wrath of the akuma would be nothing compared to Tsuzuki's eternal hurt...

- - - -

Sunrise over Kamakura wasn't nearly as beautiful as it should have been.

Tsuzuki couldn't help but think of blood as he watched the sun crawl above the horizon, with a slow morphic turn from dark red to a more pleasant pink. Low clouds caught the morbid colors and spread across the sky. _This house is getting to me_, he thought and turned his eyes away to his current mission.

The haunted lake was fairly large, a deep brown grey color that matched the vegetation that clung to life at its shores. Apparently Kasane's presence had prevented any life from thriving within her domain; animals were also conspicuously absent.

Tatsumi made his way to the place his own attack had occurred, the demon mistaking him for Nagare in a borrowed kimono. Gentle lapping waves broke the eerie silence, and Tatsumi lowered his hand to his side, shadows jumping in readiness.

Tsuzuki stood at his shoulder, nearly whimpering with fright. It was too quiet, with a demon lurking Kami knew where, ready to devour the shinigami.

"Ready?" Tatsumi whispered, knowing that no matter how frightened his former partner seemed, summoning ofuda were already clasped in slender fingers and the spell on his lips. "Now!"

The water erupted in a cascade of white foam and an ear splitting scream of agonized rage, mud colored water raining down on the two shinigami below. A sallow figure appeared from the waves, white in its guise as the long dead Kasane. She was still bound in the weed choked kimono, obi sagging about her waist. Her hair hung in bedraggled locks about her face, and her skin was slightly bloated from having been in the water for so long.

Tsuzuki wielded his ofuda like a shield, jumping in front of Tatsumi. "Reibaku!" he called, the enchantment blazing within his hands. The most powerful of sealing charms, he sent it sailing towards the tormented monster. Wasted features twisted in pain as the binding held it above the water, waves dying as its powers were instantly sealed. Tatsumi was already moving, sending his shadows across the water. Inky tendrils crawled around and through the reibaku, tightening the magic's hold on the demon before them.

"Now, Tsuzuki, call Suzaku!"

With a nod, Tsuzuki held his ofuda tightly. "I pray to the twelve gods who protect me, great phoenix, Suzaku come forth!"

Another scream echoed across the emptiness of the Kurosaki compound as Suzaku materialized in a blaze of red-orange flame and steam. The great phoenix was immediately upon the bound creature, tearing at it with her great talons.

Tsuzuki bit back his nausea as he watched his great bird rip away at the unprotesting demon, and watched the demon smile with each terrible wound.

Soon, the last bits of flesh had fallen into the murky depths, only ripples to tell tale that there had been anything there at all. Suzaku hovered where Tatsumi's shadows remained, a sharp spark announcing the dissolution of the reibaku. The two shinigami stared in shocked silence, Tsuzuki giving the dripping Tatsumi a questioning look. The secretary said nothing, but recalled his shadows to his hand.

"Enma said to bind it..."

"Be ready."

Suzaku shrieked with surprise as a fount of water erupted from the last position of the demon, her wings sizzling with steam. No longer trapped by the human form it had been forced into, the demon returned from its watery prison in its true form. It reared from the water, revealing a thickly muscled snake-like body, with a terrible lizard's bearded face.

"Free!" it screamed, massive jaws clacking together with an awful snap. Tsuzuki was immediately reminded of Sohryuu, a great legless dragon with burning eyes. Unlike the lord of the Gensoukai, this demon's hide was an onyx black with the shine of obsidian, scales impervious to any kind of physical attack from the shinigami on the shore below. Steam poured from its snout and it let loose a terrific gout of water and steam at the hovering phoenix shikigami.

The firebird screamed in reply, dodging as she was able, sending her own flames against the scaly skin. The creature howled in pain, diving for the comfort of its water to quench the firebird's unnatural fire. Using its tail as a scoop, it tossed hundreds of gallons of water at the fire god. Suzaku could not dodge all, and she steamed as the water struck her feathers.

_Oneesama...it will kill you with water..._"Suzaku, return!" Tsuzuki cried, even as he drew another 'fuda. Time for another tactic. "I pray to the twelve gods who protect me, great dragon of the sea, Sohryuu come forth!"

- - - -

"Hisoka...please forgive me..."

Watari ground his teeth in frustration, equally angry with the sad figure before him and with himself for having to break his word to Tsuzuki to watch over Hisoka. Miya had summoned him hastily, looking just as sleep deprived as the shinigami doctor. Rui-sama was having another delusional attack.

With Tatsumi and Tsuzuki occupying the demon at the lake, Watari knew this particular episode was nothing more than the madness that was quickly consuming the wasted woman's mind. He entered her room to listen to her plaintive pleas for forgiveness...from a son that rested once again under her own roof. A son who would never hear those pleas repeated, at least from Watari's lips.

"Maa, Rui-sama, a bit late for the asking, ne?" he whispered softly, withdrawing a needle loaded with sedative from his bag. There was nothing left for her but sleep, and the nightmares wherein.

With shocking strength, a skeletal arm reached up to grip his lab coat. "He was here. I saw him. In the moonlight. He is here. He can for..." The words died as the last of her desperate energy failed. Watari pursed his lips as he gave her the injection.

She had seen...or sensed Bon's presence in the hall last night. She knew the son she had so grievously betrayed was within her reach...and the forgiveness that would put her soul at rest. Watari found himself strangely dispassionate about her need. The wrongs done to Hisoka greatly outweighed one sinful need...at least in his mind.

"Perhaps I'll tell him one day, Rui-sama...before we both pass onto the Heaven we deserve."

Watari left the oblivious matriarch to her tortured dreams, fleeing from the dismal room. He kept enough presence of mind to not slam the shoji closed, instead choosing to chew on his white sleeve, growling in frustration.

"Sensei? Daijoubu ka?"

Embarrassed, Watari stopped his frantic gnawing, putting his hand on the back of his head. "Ah, Miya-san. I'm very frustrated by Rui-sama's condition."

She said nothing. Watari had a fleeting thought for Hisoka, then a flash of morbid curiosity. He had a unique chance to witness first hand the hell they had only heard in bits and pieces from the youngest shinigami's lips, here in his ancestral home. "Where are the young master's quarters, then? I know that Kurosaki-san...died unfortunately, but I have seen no memorial to him."

Miya shied away from Watari's curious gaze. "I'm afraid Kurosaki-san was kept in a room separate from the house." She studied her shoes intently. "Kurosaki-sama doesn't let anyone venture there anymore...most of the staff who served the young master are gone."

"Hmm...how...tragic," Watari managed through tightly controlled anger. Miya seemed to sense his mood and looked surreptitiously over her shoulder. What she thought she knew of the reason behind the presence of the two doctors and onmyouji was enough to make her brave about betraying the family her own had sworn service to. Her confession last night had cemented her resolve to help the strange doctor and his companions.

"I'll take you, Watari-sensei. I'll take you so Hisoka-san's room."

- - - -

_:you don't know how you've betrayed me  
and somehow you've got everybody fooled:_

It was a surreal dream I woke from, chased by demons spitting water and cold slitted eyes that followed my every move. Waking up was a relief.

The room was blessedly empty, softly lit by the newly risen sun. I wallowed for a luxurious moment in the illusion that I was in my house in Meifu, enjoying a rare, nightmare free night. It was a short moment, gone in the evanescent second between dreaming and full waking.

I pulled myself from bed, still half asleep. I fuzzily registered that Tsuzuki and the others were missing, Watari most likely attending my mother from the absence of his black satchel. I pushed down a surge of resentment at being left behind; the case couldn't be abandoned just because I didn't have control of my empathic abilities.

Still, I didn't really want to be left out. I gave myself a distasteful sniff. I'd slept in the clothes I arrived in. I dressed quickly, glad that Tsuzuki couldn't see my blush as I dressed in the most conservative outfit Saya and Yuma had provided me. The shirt at least covered my navel, even if it was printed with the word 'sparkle' in glitter. _I'll kill them when I get back. I'll kill them..._

After going through the rest of my clothes, I kept my jeans, even though I'd slept in them. Most of the ones in my bag didn't offer much in the way of movement and seemed to be composed of what I suspected was pleather. _I'll kill them...Slowly, with a blowtorch...maybe borrow some of that enchanted wire from Muraki..._

Tsuzuki had removed my house slippers while I was sleeping and only Kami knew where he'd hid them. Probably thought I'd stay put without anything on my feet. Baka. I left the roof barefoot.

_Brilliant._ Standing in the hall, I gazed stupidly about me, wondering which way to go. I had no clue where Tsuzuki was, or Tatsumi, and didn't want to interrupt Watari if he was tending my mother.

Instead, I just started walking, allowing my mind and will to wander about, to pick up stray impressions and feelings. Nothing big; my walls were as thick as I could make them without making myself comatose. The house and its bare walls passed before me, until I found myself stepping outside onto the crushed gravel path that led to the family cemetery. The stones cut into my bare feet, but something burst through the pain.

_Hisoka...come to me..._

_Who...who is it that calls? _

Still, it was the impression I had been waiting for, the summoning of the ghost of a memory, perhaps one that would lead to the unraveling of my family's secrets. With no shoes, I walked in the soft grass on the side of the path until I finally came to the origination of the psychic voice. The grave yard itself was well tended, grass trimmed and weeds pulled. The stones were polished, the very oldest showing little weathering. My intuition was pushing me towards one stone in particular.

I recognized the tombstone, the two characters for Kurosaki, with one character beneath that was chilling. I had been signing it my entire life, a girl's character. There were no dates on the stone.

_Okaasama, isn't that my name?_

_Aa, just another ancestor. Come along, Hisoka._

I reached out for the cool stone, fingers feeling the grooves of the carved name. This marker held a secret, something that had been hidden from me for my entire life. I dropped my shields, willing whatever impressions remained in the solid grains of stone to invade my mind.

_Iwao, you bastard! Your own family!_

_Shut up, Nagare. You're nothing but a worm to think that you could break the traditions of this family, traditions that have kept us alive for hundreds of years!_

_Rest well, Kasane, daisuki..._

Another, newer impression moved across my mind, and I drew my hand back. Someone was approaching the graveyard, no, two someones, with no good intent in mind. I turned, cursing the clear landscape. The only place to hide was to crouch behind the other headstones. Two large and ancient blocks served my purpose and I could hear voices just as I slipped into the shadows.

"Make it quick! Iwao-sama will not deal with his brother long."

The other didn't respond, but grunted as he thrust something into the ground. From the sounds, a sharp thunk and then a sliding against metal, I assumed they were digging. Grave robbers then, for my uncle Iwao. But which grave?

My muscles began to cramp as the men worked, doing their dirty job quickly. The sounds stopped after an eternity, and I heard them leave, their booted feet crunching along the gravel path. I ventured a look from behind my hiding stone, sure they were gone. With difficulty, I limped my way to where they were working, suddenly curious to know whose grave they had violated.

Shock course through my mind as I found myself looking down into a hole where I had just been standing, reading the headstone and its memories.

My grave. 


	6. Everybody's Fool 1:06

Told you it wouldn't be long...it was mostly done, just separated for easier reading. Enjoy it. It doesn't happen often.

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.1

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

:warning: SPOILERS! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from theria(dot)net.

:author's note: Going quicker now. So much explaining of this world to do. And it gets worse from here on in...Oh, and I'm REALLY making this up as I go along...

:disclaimer: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei.

kogatana-little katana; small blade or sword

:thanks: xangel of death sarah,

:additional note: my mailing list was erased by yahoo. if you were on that list, please resubcribe... http/groups. yahoo. com/group/daemonchan

_:lyrics:_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

- - - - -

In the same breath of Suzaku's final scream there came a terrific roar as Sohryuu rose from the tempestuous waters of Kasane's lake, locked in battle with the demon.

Tsuzuki yelped and tried to dodge the blast of super-heated water and steam that accompanied the water dragon's angry roar. "It's _definitely_ not a yuurei!" he shouted to Tatsumi. The secretary didn't bother to reply to the obvious comment, instead dodging steam and water to finish drawing the shadows together to ensnare the angry beast. Sohryuu was larger and stronger than the beast, his coils crushing the demon's obsidian scales.

"Hold him, Sohryuu!" Tsuzuki called, and Tatsumi took his cue to send the shadows again, this time drawing from beneath the two dragons to the darkest, deepest areas of the lake. An enormous hand, demon enclosed in it's tight fingers, rose high above the water, denying any aqueous power to its captive. It began to roar and scream, struggling to bite the ephemeral fingers of its shadow prison.

Shivering with wet in the dawn air, Tsuzuki stood beside Tatsumi, staring up at Sohryuu and the demon. "Sohryuu says it was summoned by the Yatonokami. It stole the likeness of Kasane's body from Rui's mind. It is their punishment."

"Punishment?" the secretary echoed, hand clenching unconsciously. The shadow fist mirrored and the demon roared again. Sohryuu responded, questioning it.

"The Yatonokami is afraid. It does not know if it will survive Nagare if he should die. And with Hisoka dead...the Yatonokami has summoned the other demon as well, its last chance to outlive the curse." Tsuzuki's face tightened. "It is their punishment for failing to produce an heir. Rui to be haunted by her dead sister, Nagare by his beloved wife."

Tatsumi was suspicious of the demon's eagerness to betray the Yatonokami. "Why does it tell us this?"

Another tense moment passed as Tsuzuki communicated with Sohryuu. "It says it owes no allegiance to the Yatonokami. It was a fluke that he had been trapped within the form and set to haunt the Kurosaki. He has been dying for years. He asks..." The dark haired shinigami stopped suddenly. "He asks that we kill him. He cannot go back to the Makai as he is."

Mercy for demons was not an encouraged practice for shinigami. They were petty creatures, delighting in the torture of humans, dead or no. Sealed and destroyed, a fate met by any demon who thought to cross the forbidden barrier between Makai and Chijou.

"Can you do it?" Tatsumi asked, steeling himself against the inevitable care and pity that rose when he asked such things of his colleague. Tsuzuki was still quite human, even after several decades as shinigami.

Surprisingly, there was no hesitation. With a gesture to Sohryuu, the demon met a swift death in the water dragon's impossibly strong coils, body crushed and broken. It began to dissolve into ash before it even hit the water, nothing remaining but what would now become part of the very lake it haunted. Sohryuu faded with a farewell roar to his master.

The thoroughly drenched pair of shinigami managed their way back to the main house, leaving a black silt water trail that followed them from the newly purged Kasanekefuchi. Tsuzuki pouted the entire way, lips trembling miserably as the cool morning air chilled him further. No one met them at the door, and they had no choice but to enter the house as they were, water and all.

"We should report to Nagare. I'm sure he'll be expecting us."

Even Tsuzuki caught the irony of the statement. Nagare had most likely been praying that the demon of the Kasanekefuchi would finish off his problems for him.

They stopped sharply as they stood before the door that would lead to the waiting room where Nagare had first seen them. The shoji slammed back, presenting the surprised shinigami with the enraged face of Nagare's older brother, Kurosaki Iwao.

The face was that of an older Nagare, with crow's feet at the corners of ordinary brown eyes. His black hair was streaked with gray, long like the younger's, pulled back severely, like an ancient shogun. The kimono was of a quality that was equal to anything Nagare owned; obviously Iwao didn't suffer from not being named head of the family. He hadn't even bothered with courtesy in his visit, still wearing his shoes, instead of tabi or house slippers.

Tatsumi bowed deeply as Iwao passed, elbowing Tsuzuki to get him to do the same. The man passed without noticing, as if the shadow master were part of the furniture. Only the sound of the elder Kurosaki's shoes could be heard, the _slap-clunk_ of wooden geta, until they too passed into silence as Iwao exited the manor.

Tsuzuki kept his eyes trained on the floor, watching the growing puddle of water spread from his feet. A stray piece of pond weed hung wetly down his forehead, directing water from his hair across his nose and lips. He dared not move until Tatsumi did.

"Iwao!" came a shout from within Nagare's sitting room. Tsuzuki could only see two white tabi clad feet as they too rushed past, pursuing the elder brother. "Iwao, please! Matte!"

The sounds of Nagare disappeared into the house, replaced by two familiar voices approaching. Watari, carrying his doctor's satchel in one hand and Miya's arm in the other, stopped with what sounded suspiciously like a snort of laughter as they came upon Tatsumi and Tsuzuki looking like two nearly drowned rats.

"What happened to you?" Watari blurted, trying unsuccessfully to choke back a laugh at the bedraggled pair. Tsuzuki was splattered liberally with pond muck, dark hair streaked with black scum and dripping brown water onto his clothes and the floor. Tatsumi was in a similar state, but managed to look more dignified.

"_We_," Tsuzuki began, "were exorcising the demon in the lake. What were _you_ doing?"

Miya came to Watari's defense. "Rui-sama had another attack. Watari-sensei was doing his job."

Tatsumi let Tsuzuki vent his accusations, knowing that Watari was bound by his oath as a doctor to assist Rui should she need it. This superseded the sincere promise he had made to Tsuzuki to look after their youngest member while they were gone. Speaking of which...He'd better sideline Tsuzuki before he decided to pick a fight with the already guilt ridden Watari.

"Where _is_ Hisoka?"

- - - - -

I couldn't remember a time I'd seen my father so angry. In my mind, he was always a cool shadow of a man, watching without care as I was trained to take his place, as my unwanted powers developed, as I sickened and slowly died.

He'd appeared in the graveyard soon after the grave robbers left and only my empathy saved me from a nasty confrontation. Familiar words drove themselves into my head, my powers caught unaware.

_Iwao, you bastard! Why?_

My former hiding place was needed once again, and I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. I still didn't trust Tatsumi's assurance that Father wouldn't recognize me. And again I questioned Enma's wisdom. _Why the hell am I here?_

It would have been better if Father had screamed when he came upon the desecration. Instead, caustic anger I had never been able to forget cut into my mind, shattering my long held walls. His thoughts poured into my head and I felt myself fading under the strength of his personality.

_I have finally pleased, Father. Tonight..._

_A younger Iwao, storming away from an even younger Nagare, waiting patiently outside their father's chambers. Nagare biting back tears, wanting nothing more than to be friends with his brother._

_"Enter, Nagare-san," his father beckoned and Nagare didn't hesitate as he knelt at his father's feet, sure that he was about to have all his hopes realized._

_"I bestow upon you the responsibility of this household, protectors of Kamakura, descendants of honored Ren-sama. Do you swear to uphold this, to sacrifice your life as Ren-sama once did, and to follow traditions, including producing an heir at an appointed time?"_

_The words were hollow, having been repeated since time immemorial among those chose to head the ancient house. Nagare found himself nodding, too caught up in his excitement to really listen to what the oath was asking of him._

_A blow to the side of his head brought him down. "Say it aloud, baka!"_

_"I...I do. I swear," he promised quickly, hand holding his face. It was not the first time his father had hit him, but he had a feeling it was the last. The older man seemed to lose vigor then, slumping back into an awaiting chair. He waved at a bamboo tray set with a single opaque glass._

_"Drink, and seal yourself to the Kurosaki, to Kamakura, and the duties of Ren-sama."_

_Nagare approached the glass with trepidation. The liquid just below the lip was deep brown, looking, much to his dismay, like old blood._

_"Drink!" his father thundered, half raising from his chair. Nagare didn't dare hesitate further and swallowed the contents of the cup in several gagging sips. The liquid was vile, and left his throat burned. He threw the cup down after he finished, turning to his father._

_His father looked infinitely old then, much older than he should have, hair nearly white at only forty years of age. He was smiling, a pitiful look that chilled Nagare's mind._

_"Curse of Ren-sama, God Killer of Kamakura!"_

_A burning pain began radiating in increasing spikes from his abdomen. Nagare stumbled against the table and brought it crashing to the floor with him. "Father...what..."_

_His father did not move from his chair, his face oddly peaceful. "The true curse of the Kurosaki. A fitting end for such a son."_

_The Yatonokami filled Nagare's mind, centuries of hate and rage building into a powerful scream that ripped from the younger Kurosaki son's lips. "What have you done to me?" Nagare managed, as he rose to his feet._

_"What was done to me, by my own father, and his father before him. To be head of this family you must take the spirit of the Yatonokami into your body, until you produce as heir to take your place..." He could hear the sneer in his father's voice. "But, you, Nagare... I fully expect the Kurosaki curse to end with you." The old man smiled maliciously. "Be thankful. You saved your brother Iwao from this fate. A fate you will come to realize that you deserve."_

_BREATHE!_

My self came crashing back into my body, saved only by the grace of my father moving swiftly away from the graves, a new purpose in mind. Pain blossomed behind my eyes, the final impression from my father.

_Kill you, Iwao..._

I was torn. Morbid fascination brought on by the revelation of my father's sordid past made me want to follow him, to glean what I could of my family from his chaotic thoughts and emotions. Years I'd been tutored about the family and Kurosaki Ren...nothing could have prepared me for the truth of my father's sad life. Still, I hadn't seen any of my partners before leaving the house to follow the strange summons, and hadn't tried to report in. Tsuzuki must be nearing meltdown about now.

No, there would never be another chance for me. Enma-sama had sent me here for a reason, and I hoped it was this.

With that purpose firmly in mind, I set off after my father.

- - - - -

Tsuzuki had been running for their room before Tatsumi had even finished the question, Watari following guiltily. Miya remained, hands fluttering helplessly at her sides. Tatsumi decided to see if she was still as willing to reveal what she knew of the family today as she had been last night.

"Where is Kurosaki-sama?" Tatsumi asked, masking his suspicion at the patriarch's sudden departure. The door had barely closed behind Iwao before Nagare was storming down the hall, teeth bared in rage.

Miya smiled tightly. "He visits Hisoka-sama's grave...whenever Iwao-sama comes."

"Never his son?" Tatsumi probed gently, somehow knowing the sad answer before the maid could give it.

"Oh no," Miya corrected sadly, her eyes falling. "Hisoka, his son...It's almost as if he never was...They are buried at the same headstone, but you'd never realize that there were two by the same name..."

Tatsumi was suddenly glad that Hisoka was resting. There seemed no end to what father did to son, even after death. "Let's collect Tsuzuki and the others. I'd like to visit Hisoka's grave if we may."

"Of course, sensei," Miya answered, bowing slightly. They hadn't made it ten feet before Tatsumi was knocked to the ground by a wet bundle of inu, Tsuzuki in hysterical tears as he gripped the collar of Tatsumi's ruined suit.

"He's gone! Probably thought we'd abandoned him...maybe even kidnapped..."

A well placed smack sent the shinigami backward, eyes swirling with the pain. Tatsumi stood, adjusting his glasses and looked to the more coherent Watari for an explanation.

"He hasn't been gone long. He changed clothes and is probably still here on the grounds."

"Think, Tsuzuki. Where might Kurosaki go?"

Slightly sullen, Tsuzuki rubbed his sore cheek. "I don't know. His room?"

Watari shook his head, a denial that was too quick for Tatsumi's liking. "He would have had to pass Rui-sama's room and neither I nor Miya-san saw him."

That left another possibility. The same idea rose in Tsuzuki's mind and he shuddered violently, hands going to his shoulders.

"Enma, I hope not," he whispered. "I'll go." He looked up at Miya, uncommon seriousness in his amethyst eyes. "Where is the sakura tree, Miya-san?"

_:without your mask  
where will you hide:_

The servants at Iwao's mansion bowed low, refusing to answer anything Nagare asked. It was obvious that they had been expecting him, standing ready to escort as he crossed the threshold, exchanging his geta for slippers. They merely escorted him to the main room where Iwao saw to guests. His brother sat on a dais in a large chair that more closely resembled a Western throne, a deep red wood carved with images of dragons and phoenixes.

"Please return what you have taken. I don't want things to be worse between us."

Nagare knelt at his brother's feet, desperate to defeat the past that had created such animosity between the two brothers. Iwao watched disdainfully, face indifferent.

"I have no idea what you mean, Nagare. What of yours could I want?"

The man on the floor flinched, knowing that Iwao's acerbic hatred was because of their father's last wish: that Nagare be the head of the Kurosaki house.

_Father always favored you, Iwao. I was less than dirt to you both. No matter how I tried._

"The remains of my daughter. Please return them."

Iwao rose and came to stand in front of his prostrate brother. "I told you, I don't know what you're talking about."

With a growl, Nagare leapt up to tackle the shocked Iwao, taking both to the tatami mats on the floor. "You think I don't know what happened that night! Do you enjoy having the proof of your guilt under your own roof?"

Reaching back into the tie of his yukata, he drew a kogatana, placing the blade inches from Iwao's nose. "You strangled her! Because she was a _girl_!"

Staring down the blade to his brother's murderous visage, Iwao managed to sneer. "I was following tradition, the tradition that has kept our family in power for centuries. How convenient that you were out of the house that night, sent on important family business."

Nagare could feel his reason slipping away, lost beneath a wave of hatred. He screamed then, raising his arm to bury the short blade in his brother's hateful face.

_-No.- _came the undeniable command of the trapped god._ -Iwao will be dealt with. I have plans for him as well.-_

The blade intended for his life instead was buried in the tatami next to the elder Kurosaki's head. With a vicious shove, Iwao freed himself from Nagare's grip. The blade made a cracking rip in the floor, the younger man falling back with a cry of pain. The elder climbed to his feet, trying to look as if his brother's murder attempt hadn't rattled him.

"Why, Nagare? Why would father choose you? I was first born, I am the legitimate heir to this family! "

_Why indeed? I tried so hard to please Father, and in the end...the curse was payment for my love._

Was it true then? Had Nagare so fully hidden himself in his position that he'd failed to realize the sad truth of his role in the family?

"I _will_ be head of this family," Iwao hissed venomously. He nodded to his two bodyguards, the still figures slipping into quiet action. Iwao delighted in the archaic, the figures looking just like samurai stepped out of history. They did not touch Nagare, but waited at his arms, with the clear intent to remove him from his brother's sight.

With wounded pride, a defeated Nagare lifted himself from the floor. "No, Niisan, I'm afraid you won't." He laughed harshly. "And if you knew what it truly meant to be head of this family, you wouldn't wish for it so passionately."

He could hear Iwao's incensed sputtering behind him, but brushed past the samurai guards to take himself from the scene of his terrible epiphany. He had been helpless growing up, trapped by his need to please his father and brother. Then he had been the sacrifice for Iwao, he had been born to bear the necessary misfortune.

Now, he had the power, the power to change it all. He gripped the hilt of the blade intended for his brother's death and walked slowly from the last of his family.

- - - - -

_:can't find yourself  
lost in your lie:_

Nagare ceased his journey home in a splash of frigid water, kneeling in the shallow river that separated the lands of the Kurosaki from the village. The kogatana he had intended to murder his brother with was still in his hand. Bringing the blade up, he stared into the highly polished metal, grimacing at the sight of his bound eyes.

There was nothing left. Iwao had finally destroyed any hope Nagare had ever held at repairing the rift between them. His body was nearly possessed fully by the demon within; he felt less human with each passing heartbeat.

There was only one honor left to him, only one gift he could give to his daughter, his wife...and his poor dead son.

_-Nagare...don't you dare to...-_

_It ends here. The past comes full circle. Father knew._ The kogatana's blade was frigid, much like the water he knelt in. His legs had gone numb and the fine silk yukata destroyed. Gooseflesh rose where he touched the small sword to his neck.

_-Your father knew nothing...nothing...You cannot destroy me.-_

_I was nothing but a substitute for my brother..._

"No," Nagare whispered, gripping the kogatana with white knuckles. "It ends here. My father's last wish..."

The end of the Kurosaki line. The end of the Yatonokami. The end of everything...

A quick movement and the blade arced across his throat. Red life began streaming from the wound as he fell backward into the water, knees twinging in protest. But soon even that minor discomfort was lost in the seeping cold that replaced his life.

_He hadn't even removed his shoes before the old maid was pulling at his arm, screaming that Kasane...something had happened to Kasane. "Where is Kasane?"_

_No one had seen her. Nagare's first thought was for the baby she carried. Why would she wander off so close to term? Miyaka...that was the old maid's name he recalled, was gibbering again. He could only make out a few words between her panic and his own mounting terror that something horrific had happened in his absence._

_"Iwao-sama came to help Kasane-sama with the birth. Your daughter...I'm sorry...she was born dead..."_

_His daughter was dead? Iwao had been here? The nebulous fear settled into an icy pit of knowing in his stomach. Daughter. Iwao. His brother had gotten to the baby..._

_"Kasane!" he screamed, pushing the old woman aside. "Kasane!" Her quarters were empty, her wardrobe full. The only thing missing were her geta. The lake..._

_Nagare raced out the door, running as fast as he was able in his formal kimono. His geta were lost quickly, his tabi shredding as he fought his way over grass and rocks to the lake. Soon, he was slipping on his bloody feet, but made it to the lakeshore, falling to his knees in shock._

_There, in the dark water, was the light silk of Kasane's kimono, the bow of her obi glinting in the sunlight. _

_"Kasane!"_

_He raged into the water, dragged down as his own kimono became saturated. An eternity later found him dragging her onto the shore, ear pressed to her chest. No breath. No heartbeat. Her lips were blue, her skin white and cold. She had been dead too long to try and revive her._

_No, she was moving, slowly sitting up and smiling at the frozen Nagare. "Nagare. Come to me."_

_"Kasane...you...you were dead..."_

_The corpse smiled gently. "Yes, love, I am dead. Soon...you will be too."_

- - - - -

"Tousama..."

I was too late. I followed at what I'd thought was a safe distance, knowing the way to my uncle's mansion even after all these years. I'd waited outside the house after my father had been escorted inside, straining to pick up any impressions. The house was silent and my father too far away for any clear images or thoughts. When he'd left, his mind was curiously blank. I followed again, hoping his emotions would betray what had taken place between him and Iwao.

Too slow. Nothing, no hint in the few snatches of sadness I did sense. Nothing prepared me for what I saw in the river.

- - - - -

Tsuzuki drew back in pain, head tingling with what he knew was an unconscious summons from his partner. Hisoka was in pain, an emotional turmoil that sought out the only other soul that had ever brought comfort. Images filled his mind as he drew out an ofuda, creating the fragile bird that would relay the message to Tatsumi and Watari.

He turned the way he'd come, each step a prayer to the kami that he would make it to Hisoka's side in time.

- - - - -

The water was bright with blood. His kimono was dyed with it. It seemed the entire river bed was tainted with crimson. Was the Kurosaki line nothing more than this precious liquid flowing so easily away? Was this what had mattered so much?

I stepped closer, nearly afraid that the monster in hiding would come tearing from my father any moment. He had fallen on his back, knees still bent. Black hair fanned about him, sticking and cloying to the ruined clothes like old blood. His eyes opened briefly, eyes now human, a plain empty brown that reflected his broken soul.

His blue lips begin moving in a constant litany. "Kasane. Hisoka."

An instant of understanding and pity for my father flooded my heart. He had been nothing but a sacrifice for the family. A spare child to burden with the curse of generations.

I gently knelt in the water, hissing at the cold. The kogatana, his suicide weapon, was still clutched in one pale hand. I reached for the blade, bracing myself against anything that might come from the sorry figure before me.

Nothing. Empty, human nothing. I pry open the fingers, saddened by the cold skin beneath my hand. For a moment the water catches the blade and it slices back across my fingers. I stare dumbly at the blood that begins to well, fat drops falling to blend immaculately with my father's.

The basest of connections to the man who had helped create me...and destroy me.

My father struggled for a moment, eyes widening in shock. "Hisoka...kun..." His eyes closed suddenly and my father stopped breathing.


	7. Everybody's Fool 1:07

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.1

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

:warning: SPOILERS! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from theria(dot)net.

:author's note: I went back and read the manga. I left out a lot of the interaction between Iwao and Nagare, but have tried to be true to Matsushita-sensei's intentions for the poor bastard. And it gets worse from here on in...Oh, and I'm REALLY making this up as I go along...

:additional: the dialogues between Tatsumi and Nagare and Nagare and Rui are nearly a direct quote from theria's translations. I've emailed her numerous times. Theria, forgive me...

:disclaimer: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei.

:thanks: liliath, e-san, aoiyuki, karen1004, melrose stormhaven (he's not dead yet, tee hee), amberly

:additional note: my mailing list was erased by yahoo. if you were on that list, please resubcribe... http/groups. yahoo. com/group/daemonchan

_:lyrics:_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

- - - - -

_:it never was and never will be:_

_So close...Kasane had given him her hand..._

An undercurrent of fear thrummed through his clouded mind, scattering his first waking thought, the barely concealed terror of a god that had come close to nonexistence.

_-You WILL not die. I will not be destroyed that easily...-_

As his half dead senses once again began taking stock of his world, Nagare listened to the incensed god rail against his failed attempt to end it all, to take his own life and the curse of Kamakura with him. Or maybe just set the wrathful spirit free to haunt the physical world. Revenge had a certain satisfaction to it, a final farewell to the hell that had been his life.

The Kurosaki patriarch had woken from the tempting dreams of his wife in his private quarters, bitterly alive. Even trapped beneath a small hill of blankets, he still felt the bone cold of the river that had washed his blood away. He could do little more than turn his head; any energy remaining was spared for breathing and keeping his black heart beating.

All the trappings Nagare had adopted to hide his shame from the world had been stripped away, his eyes unbound and body bare beneath the heaping of blankets. His secrets were exposed, and at his own hand.

The strange doctor was attending him, the tall, serious man with dark hair and eyes like steel. He was speaking in low tones with his maid. The girl left quickly, and most likely gratefully.

_I'm a failure..._

"Sensei..." His voice was the barest whisper, his throat a bloody ruin.

Tatsumi was at his side, falling back into his role as doctor. "Gotoushuu, does it hurt anywhere?"

A sad, pained smile reached pale lips. "No... I am fine." He chuckled painfully, as if his survival was just another cruel joke against him, another in a long line of misfortunes for him and his family. "I thought, at last, I would finally meet Kasane and the children. But, at the end, something drew me back into the curse of the Kamakura..."

_It was his son...he KNEW it...one demon to another..._

"Gotoushuu, please do not strain yourself. You must save your strength." Tatsumi again called on the courtly manners of his family. They could do nothing but humor the man; Nagare was as good as dead, his soul still clinging to his body. Watari was at that moment trying desperately to contact anyone in Meifu to get word on how to proceed next. The secretary had volunteered to help keep an eye on Hisoka's father, as the demon inside was far from dead.

Yellowed eyes narrowed as if he sensed the insincerity of Tatsumi's words. "Sensei, I know...I am dying. Soon, the Kurosaki bloodline will end...just as my father wanted..."

Tatsumi paused in his ministrations. _What did he say_? _His father? The previous head wished for this house to become extinct?_ It made a kind of macabre sense, to keep one son untainted and sacrifice the other. Nagare's father obviously assumed that the demon would die with his son then, leaving Iwao to assume the wealth and power of the Kurosaki name, with the curse forever gone.

The former patriarch was taking a terrible chance. There were no assurances that the demon would die with its host. There was no proof that the Yatonokami wouldn't just take another host. Or just disappear into the dark ether of the demon world it came from. The demon god itself had shown its own uncertainty by giving itself contingencies such as tampering with Hisoka and the demonic pregnancy of Rui-sama.

Sliding the shoji aside, Miya interuppted Tatsumi's thoughts. Moving from Nagare's bedside, they shared a low conversation, trying not to disturb the dying.

Nagare could see the half distracted way the doctor listened to the maid and leave the death room with a backward glance. His shoulders were tensed with reluctance, but chance had interfered. Suspicions had been confirmed on both sides and it was time to move.

_-Now, Nagare!-_

Nagare didn't have the energy for even a mental protest as his persona was forcefully moved to the dark corners of his own mind, the deep shadows that the Yatonokami had been haunting him from. The demon god was using every spare iota of energy either of them had to spare, pushing their body up from the bed.

Miya didn't even have time to gasp as her half dead master tossed aside his blankets, cold hand locked about her wrist. The gold eyes caught hers and the psyche known as Miya dissolved with the demon's hiss.

- - - - -

Round pools of koi dominated the interior garden, the pride of my misbegotten family. The sculpted grounds of water plants and centuries old bonsai was the one thing my father put his own hand to, insisting that a master's garden flourishes only under the master's hand.

I had put a hand in, once, when I was a boy. Mother was there, in a spring kimono. Father was gone, the black anger I was coming to recognize absent from the grounds. In those days, Mother was weak to my whims, and I'd convinced her to have a 'picnic' like in one of the books the tutors thought was good English practice. The servants packed our lunch and we spread a blanket in the center of the garden.

That day is the one memory I have that is untainted, no stray emotions, as my powers hadn't surfaced, no father to condemn me with his eyes. A day when my mother still loved me.

I remember touching one of the bonsai, a particularly small pine that had been guided into a single spiral. Settled in an antique vase of Chinese porcelain, it held a singular position atop one of the boulders forming the border of the largest koi pond.

That memory still remains untouched, as the darkness that was my father didn't return until the next day. However, the next I looked into the garden, I found no sign of the bonsai I had touched. When I questioned my mother, she frowned and said it had been destroyed. Diseased, she lied easily.

Father later confessed that the plant had been Kasane-obaasama's favorite, a gift from her brother. It had become diseased.

The way he looked at me then, a child wondering, made me sure that I was the disease that had infected the plant, poisoning the one beautiful thing I'd dared to touch in that garden. I also had a small inkling that Father had destroyed the plant himself, burning away the hand of his tainted son.

He knew. Even then. Bastard.

"Hisoka?"

Damn my muffled shields. I'd easily lost myself in thought, allowing Tsuzuki to sneak up on me. I glanced over my shoulder as he placed his hand there...and shook me.

"Baka! I know you're there."

He smirked. "You didn't." His eyes fell with his hand. Kami, I didn't like how serious he could be...how serious he had been lately. I really couldn't wait to get the 'other' Tsuzuki back. "Are you okay?"

I was tempted to lie, like I'd always done. But, a word escaped and a sudden, and unwelcome, deluge of tears followed.

"No."

I knew I was bordering becoming hysterical, but couldn't seem to stop myself. "He knew it was me! He said...he s..said..." Why was it so hard to finish?

Because my father hadn't said my name since I was...three? Five? When did I tell my mother I knew she was angry, or that one of the maids was sad...before the girl had even entered the room? Before or after they locked me in my prison, to waste away with my own mental angst and childish hopes?

There are arms around me then, and, kami bless him, shields of steel melting away the constant throb of old, decayed emotions from the house. My own turmoil slowed to a crawl, leaving me a moment's peace to finish my earlier thoughts.

"He said my name. Just before he stopped breathing. He recognized me."

Tsuzuki nodded into my back. No awkward platitudes, no 'Hisoka, you're just imagining things'. Tatsumi and Watari were attending my father, so I didn't have to hear their comments on my paranoid behavior.

Thankfully, my father had started breathing on his own after another minute, saving us from having to decide whether or not to save him. I know our job is to collect souls, not bring their bodies back to life, but no one is quite sure what will happen when he dies.

Yes, when, not if.

And I for one don't want to be the only warm body around if the demon doesn't go spiraling into Hell with my father's soul.

- - - - -

The boy seemed preoccupied, staring out into the courtyard with a kind of dazed wonder. Nagare was sure to keep his breathing even, fighting against the inhuman excitement of the demon god within. Thankfully, Hisoka was in deep brooding, otherwise allowing his father to spy on him without his wary powers alerting him.

What Nagare had sensed back in the river, body shocked with blood loss and heart begging for his sins to forgive him...now stood before him in the flesh.

The demon's taint was there, carefully molded into a human body. Still rail thin, he bore the marks of his three year sickness. Nagare had seen the boy only once after having him committed to care outside the house and had not seen his own son in the boy before him. His emerald eyes, those eyes that had given away Hisoka's demon powers, may have been disguised, but ningen tricks could not hide what any demon could see. Four years had changed much. He had returned.

His son had come home.

_How?_ was Nagare's muddled question, having seen the body interred himself, under the same stone where his daughter had been buried. An instant later, a word flowed into his mind, a word provided by the demon inside.

_Shinigami._

_-Yesssss...-_ the Yatonokami hissed in triumph. The plans he had once had for the boy were resurrected from the ashes of failure. He wouldn't have to wait for Nagare to waste away to be free. Not only would he get the body of his own creation, with inhuman abilities, but immortality would be his as well. The shinigami had given him a precious gift.

First...The false doctor was shrewd, Nagare knew, the demon inside scheming furiously. He would have to rid himself of Tatsumi and Watari, and separate the two 'onmyouji'...

Movement behind his son made Nagare draw further into his shadows, unwilling to be caught just as his plans were set into motion.

"Hisoka?" came a concerned whisper, the man called Tsuzuki stepping forward to shake the boy from his daze. Nagare smirked, the so-called onmyouji betraying his 'brother' with a word.

That was soon to be rectified and

Leaving the boy to his dazed musings, Nagare returned to his quarters, pulling out the filthy yukata he had been pulled from the river in. Thankfully time hadn't allowed for the tainted cloth to be destroyed. He draped the garment over his arm, another piece in a careful plan. There were so many pawns to move into place.

Then all the Kurosaki could suffer their due fates.

"Miya-san."

The girl stepped forward, dark eyes blank and ready for Nagare's commands. The Yatonokami had snapped her will, ready to sacrifice all that was left of the Kurosaki's life. She would serve her part in this.

"Place this yukata at the front gate. Then, lure Kyou-san and Tsuzuki-san to the graveyard, to Hisoka's grave." He pressed a yellowed ofuda into her slack hand. "Make sure this is on the path."

The mindless girl nodded and disappeared to follow her master's orders. The patriarch had other plans to put into motion.

Eyes closed, the demon god reached far for his final pawn, face drawn in a wicked smile. "Iwao...the time has come..."

- - - - -

Iwao tossed on his bed, tangled in his sweat soaked blankets. "No," he mumbled, brows drawn as he fought against his dreams.

_-You wanted to be my vessel, Iwao. You wanted my power and the influence of the Kurosaki name.-_

Pictures of the afternoon flashed through his mind, ending with Nagare turning from him. The demon completed the mind movie by showing Iwao his brother's failed suicide attempt, the sight of Nagare's bleeding body laying in the river making Iwao more excited than any sane man had a right to be.

_-It is only a matter of time before Nagare is dead, Iwao. Even now he breaths shorten and his sight dims. You must be here to claim me when he dies. Only then will you have what is rightfully yours.-_

Eyes still closed in sleep, greedy smile on his lips, Iwao rose from his bed, answering to the summons he had waited to hear, knew in his darkest heart he deserved more than his worthless brother. He would take his birthright back. He walked out of the safety of his house, following the same path his brother had earlier followed to confront him. All the while, the Yatonokami sang to him, promises of wealth and power such as no human had ever obtained.

_-You are mine, Iwao. Like Nagare, you will bend to my will.-_

_:you don't know how you've betrayed me:_

"Rui."

The shattered form turned at the voice, one she was familiar with, as it haunted her just as the dead form of her sister had. Watari had been generous in his evaluation of her condition; there was literally nothing left of the woman but bones and hollow animated eyes that burned with madness.

"Nagare...!" she whispered, struggling to rise from what had been her prison for the last two years. "Please, save me!" The plea was heart breaking. He had stopped coming to visit her just to escape her begging. "She's coming...she's coming for me!"

Nagare smiled gently as he approached his prone wife, his hand smoothing back her sweat soaked hair. Rui attempted a smile then, skin stretched impossibly across her skull.

"There..." her head snapped around, from Nagare's last gentle touch. "The sound of water... it's coming closer!"

Years of being bed ridden and unable to escape the demon the Yatonokami had forced into her sister's form had finally snapped what remained of Rui's mind. The demon knew that the shinigami had destroyed Kasane's form earlier, and anything Rui thought she saw or heard was just her own hallucination.

"My sister... is coming to kill me again!" She had managed to sit up, ungainly with her distended belly. It was clear that she would try to run, as impossible as that seemed, in order to flee the specter she could hear coming for her. "Please, let me out of here!"

_-Now, Nagare. Bring her with us.-_

A drop of water seemed to echo throughout the stark bed chamber, the room where they had conceived their now dead son, and had suffered ever since. The power of Rui's madness had given life to the horrors that haunted her, and even Nagare could hear the steady drip of death from his drowned love.

"It's all right, Rui...It will all end one way or another..." It was a promise to himself, not just his spent wife. Nagare bent to kiss her burning forehead, slender fingers raking through the plastered locks. "Because everything will be gone..."

_:you're not real and you can't save me:_

From the way my legs had cramped, I knew I had been standing at the window for a long while, lost within my thoughts. The rice paper screens were dyed with a faint blush announcing the coming of sunset and night. Tsuzuki hadn't moved or spoken, a new record for him. I thought about rewarding him when we returned to Meifu, to home, leaving this hell behind. My father...

My father, the Yatonokami was still very real, still waiting to...do what? What was its agenda? Possess me? Tsuzuki? Let the abomination in my mother's womb free to terrorize the world? The trapped demon god had had a few good centuries to plan for this moment.

"Kyo-san? Tzuzuki-san?"

Miya's call didn't register. No one but my own companions had spoken to me, when I happened to be conscious, and none bothered to call me by my dubious pseudonym. I bit back sudden nervousness, glad my partner had withdrawn to an acceptable distance, and tried to remember the role I had come here to play.

"Miya-san? What do you need?" I tried to remember not to sound pissed off all the time, as Tsuzuki had put it. I couldn't be my usual self here. Still, the young girl cringed slightly with my brusque words.

She hesitated a moment, hands wringing at her breast, nervous eyes darting between me and my partner. "I..It's Rui-sama, Kyo-san. She's gone missing from her bed chamber." Her eyes failed to meet mine, and she continued miserably. "I tried to find sensei, but they left the house and told no one where they had gone. Even Kurosaki-sama doesn't know."

I experienced a strange dual sensation at the moment, the impossibility of being both hot and cold, both centered in my chest. Knowing my mother was gone could mean only one thing: it was time. The Yatonokami had some how forced my father to rise, and was about to complete it's long awaited plans. Hot anger that the demon within was going to fulfill its plans of my mother's demise drove away the cold certainty of what we were to face.

I had only to glance at Tsuzuki before knowing our reply. "We will help you, Miya-san."

Tsuzuki nodded in agreement. "What about Tatsumi and Watari?"

Miya spoke up. "I will get them for you. Please, just find Rui-sama before something happens to her!" She turned then, taking off at a run towards the guest rooms where Watari had been trying to contact the Gushoushin. I let my shields lower, nodding grimly to my partner.

"She was lying."

"I know."

"You know it's a trap."

"Yes."

"We have to go, don't we?"

I hated sounding like I was whining, trying to bargain my way of what I had clearly been sent to do. Tsuzuki just nodded, placing a hand on my shoulder. I took the cue, using his shields to keep the house at bay as I searched for the haunted aura that was my mother. I found what was left of her, her emotions worn to nothing more than deep sadness.

"Got her. In the cemetery." I grimaced as I brushed against the other mind with her. "With my father."

- - - - -

Tatsumi pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to reveal his frustrations. Watari had sent Miya with the urgent message that Tatsumi return to their quarters immediately, leaving the kagestukai to assume that he had contacted someone in Meifu.

Watari's look upon his return was not encouraging. "I can't get either Gushoushin, Kanoe-kachou, or even Terazuma! We've been cut off."

There was no chance that it was coincidence. The only question was, who had blocked communications?

"No help for it then. We'll continue to watch..."

"Sensei!" came Miya's frantic call, breaking her headlong rush on their doorframe, bent nearly double as she struggled to find her breath. "K-Kurosaki-sama...he's gone! He...he got up...I think he's gone to kill Iwao-sama!"

"Kuso," Watari swore, slamming down the cover to his laptop. Brushing past the breathless maid, Tatsumi followed his partner, mind furiously trying to puzzle out why now, of all times, the Yatonokami would choose to pursue Iwao...perhaps he would kill the last of the Kurosaki...

Watari had his shoes on in record time, waiting for Tatsumi to stumble into his. _This isn't right_, his mind insisted, even as he pushed aside the front door and stepped onto the wide porch where they had first been greeted in Kamakura.

A figure stood in the gateway, long dark hair a halo about the thin frame draped in a bloody yukata. Hadn't Nagare been wearing...?

"Watari!" He hissed, missing the doctor's shirt by inches. They rushed headlong down the path, skidding to a stop as the figure's face became clear.

"Nagare," the man hissed, eyes wild with madness. "How nice of you to come see your brother."


	8. Everybody's Fool 1:08

Evanescent Days: Track 01

Everybody's Fool v.1

Yami No Matsuei Alterverse

by Daemonchan

:warning: SPOILERS! AU - 3 years following Kyoto. Kurosaki family information stolen from Gensoukai and Kamakura Hen. All that stuff with Kurikara never happened. Manga and anime based. Translations from theria(dot)net.

:author's note: This is it. The final confrontation. (Did it really take two years to write this thing?) Where Nagare gets what he deserves and Hisoka, well... And it gets worse from here on in...Oh, and I'm REALLY making this up as I go along...

:disclaimer: nothing in this fic but the storyline is mine. Lyrics borrowed from Evanescence and characters from Matsushita-sensei.

tasukete yo-save me

mabaroshi-illusion

Kami wa taisetsuna mono o kizutsukeru-God hurts those he loves (Weiss song)

:thanks: melrose stormhaven (berry ebil ), jennamarie

:additional note: my mailing list was erased by yahoo. if you were on that list, please resubcribe...onegaishimasu...

_:lyrics:_

_-Yatonokami-_

_Impressions and telepathic thought_

- - - - -

Deja vu crept up my back as my partner and I stepped out onto the gravel path leading up to the family graveyard. Tsuzuki pressed something into my hand, the cool parchment of one his kekkai ofuda. I bit back my usual 'don't need your help' comment, remember how handy his kekkai had been when we first (or second for me) encountered Muraki. Gift horse and all.

I took the lead, mentally congratulating my spine for reasserting itself, and saving us from Tsuzuki's pitying gaze. He was at my side, though, his ground eating strides shortened to accommodate my slightly sorter form.

Up ahead, the entire area was swallowed by a massive shadowed aura, consuming the last rays of the day like a voracious black hole. It swayed and beckoned, tempting us to approach and discover its mysteries.

My powers were useless again without Tsuzuki's direct contact. I was walking blind into what was a fairly obvious trap. Set up for me. So my father could steal my body.

Was it too late to turn back?

Another step and I was suddenly very aware of the sound of only one pair of feet on the path. I looked to my side and found Tsuzuki gone.

"Shit."

- - - - -

_-You are mine, Iwao. Like Nagare, you will bend to my will.-_

The voice a constant mantra, Iwao found himself at the gates to Kurosaki estate, door wide in invite.

_-There, on the gate.-_

Iwao's half lidded eyes were drawn to the stained garment, his hands reaching to drawn the blood soaked cloth to him. As it slid over his shoulders, Iwao's mind slipped further, becoming the head of the family in a simple move.

_-Wait.-_ the demon purred, leaving the deranged brother framed within the ancient gate. He didn't have time to question why he was waiting as he was confronted by two figures running from the house, skidding to a bewildered stop just feet from him. The taller of the two...dark hair...Nagare had come to challenge his claim on the house.

"Nagare. How nice of you to come see your brother."

"Naga..." Watari's words became a wheeze as Tatsumi's elbow found his side. Inwardly, the secretary was cursing himself, having fallen for the maid's hysterical tears without a deeper thought. They'd stepped right into the Yatonokami's plan, and effectively removed themselves from helping Hisoka or Tsuzuki.

Sensing Iwao's madness, Tatsumi stepped forward, eyes flashing. "Why have you come to my house, Iwao? Did we not say all that needed saying?"

Watari was in that instant reminded why even Muraki was wary of the shadow master. Meticulous and fanatically protective of his friends and family.

Iwao would not pass through.

Iwao's answering laugh was mad. "He came to me in my dreams, Nagare. Promised me the power and wealth of the Kurosaki! Me!

"The daughter...it was too easy. The first born had to be male. She would die and with Kasane gone he'd never have another heir. I could kill him and the Yatonokami would take my body in his place. Then he had that bastard Hisoka. That demon's child.

"You remember the old school house, Nagare? The one we swore was haunted? From the highest window, your poor daughter..."

Tatsumi knew they were just being delayed, forced to play whatever game the Yatonokami had for them. He dove into the shattered man's fantasy, taking on the role of Nagare. "You drove my wife mad by killing her daughter. You destroyed our family."

Iwao nodded eagerly, pacing towards the shinigami pair. "I didn't think you would take Rui. You loved Kasane so much..." He laughed again. "So much that you married her twin."

"The son...the son was a problem. You never let him out of your sight, being the heir. And then when he started reading your evil hearts, you locked him away where I could not reach him. But someone else found him, someone who made him suffer."

I went to see him, you know, in the hospital. I saw him fevered and dying, wasted away to the nothing his father was. He called out for you and Rui, his last breath wondering why his parents had forsaken him..."

"Urusei..." Tatsumi growled, hands coming together, drawing up the shadows of the dying day around the broken minded Kurosaki. Watari jumped back, doing his best to keep out of the shadow master's way. With a muffled roar, waves of darkness swallowed Iwao whole, deadening the horrific laugh.

The shinigami were blown back as Iwao turned aside the shadows as if they were nothing, glowing with an unholy light. Just as suddenly as it began, the light dimmed, leaving a stunned Iwao.

"No, you promised! Promised me!" The elder began to foam at the mouth, spittle flying as he railed against the invisible demon god who had abandoned him. "Ya...kami..." he gasped, collapsing to the ground, bright blood flowing from the now silent mouth.

_Something's happened_, was Watari's first thought as he turned from the suddenly stringless puppet that had been the demon ridden Kurosaki elder. Tatsumi had obviously had the same thought, as they made a mad run for the house, praying to Enma to be there in time.

- - - - -

"Mabaroshi," Tsuzuki hissed, ofuda grasped in his long fingers. Hisoka had been allowed to pass right through, while he would be trapped until he found the source.

The illusion was surreal, replete with a full petaled sakura and a moon rising, tainted the exact shade of blood. He'd been on this very spot earlier, indescribably relieved this his partner had not had the morbid idea to the return to the scene of his rape.

With trepidation, he approached the tree, pink petals a lurid red carpet on the ground. A figure was shadowed beneath the sprawling branches, stark against the darkness in what appeared to be white haori and hakama. Familiar honey brown hair fell across the figure's face, wind playing with the silken mass.

"Hisoka?"

His query seemed to be the impetus for the unfolding scene. The figure began moving then, turning with the grace of a frightened deer. Another shape moved into the image, tall, dark haired, the opposite pole from his fair haired partner.

He knew the figure, without seeing his face. He'd seen it in his worst nightmares, trapped within his mind at the mercy of the demon sergeant who had possessed him, feared it everyday.

Somewhere in time, that dark figure was him.

The amethyst eyes shinigami felt his heart stop as he heard the illusory Hisoka's whispered words. "Tsuzuki. Why are you doing this?"

The darker man captured the younger shinigami in a fierce embrace, one arm at the small of his back, other hand capturing a pale hand like leading a macabre dance in the bloody moonlight. "It's my nature, Hisoka. Kami wa taisetsuna mono o kizutsukeru."

_Even Kami abandoned me..._

The boy barely struggled, drowning in the dark aura flowing from the man who had come to consume him. "You're not kami."

"Close enough," the shadow laughed roughly. His pale face inches from Hisoka's, he wasn't aware as Tsuzuki thrust his arms between them, wrenching the smaller boy from the dangerous embrace. He faced down his doppelganger defiantly, his back to the sakura, shielding the trembling Hisoka.

"You," the dark Tsuzuki hissed, at once bringing up his hands, summoning a tightly controlled ball of dark fire. The shinigami mirrored the move, but with a kekkai ofuda, praying that the illusion didn't truly possess the same level of power the truth did. His darker side sent the magic flying towards him, grinning madly as it broke across the barrier in midnight waves, streaming like water around the shinigami and Hisoka, drowning the meager light.

Faces rose in the darkness before him, shadows of his twisted past. Human forms, still covered with the blood of their deaths. They laughed madly as they sought entrance, pointing ghostly fingers, taunting him with their accusing eyes. The ofuda dropped sharply, kekkai giving an ominous crack, even as he fought to not give into what he'd been telling himself for too many decades to count.

_Evil...akuma...murderer!_

Tsuzuki felt warmth against his back, Hisoka's hands coming up to hold his own. The familiar tingle of synchronized power began, the ofuda in his fingers brightening in response. Together, nothing could break the kekkai.

_This is not you, Tsuzuki. My father seeks to show you what you could be...what could have been...remember, it is only a mabaroshi. It can't hurt you._

The death masks dissolved in the widening arc of the kekkai, forcing the dark Tsuzuki back. He clutched one hand to his chest, slightly singed by the increased power. With a baleful glare, he prepared to hurl another of his black orbs.

Tsuzuki glanced back at his partner, smiling. _Hisoka, I..._

_Shhh..._ the illusion whispered. _Don't waste such precious words on what is not real._

"Now, Tsuzuki!" Hisoka screamed, leaping forward and taking the defensive ofuda. In the same breath, Tsuzuki drew a fire 'fuda, the character honou blazing with red light as he whirled to seal it to the sakura tree. The tree was immediately consumed, the mabaroshi's tie broken.

The illusion fell like shattered glass, Tsuzuki smiling gently as his partner broke just like his darkness. Ashes of the ofuda creating the trap drifted from the path and Tsuzuki was glad to see that the moon had returned to its normal silver color.

"Okaasan!"

Heart in his throat, and cursing himself for falling into the illusion, Tsuzuki tore down the path, drawing a summoning ofuda and pray feverently he would make it in time.

_:i know the truth now  
i know who you are  
and i don't love you anymore:_

Small fires painted the grounds just before the graveyard with lurid shadows, white gravel stained beneath my feet. I had come upon the scene of the final atrocity of the Kurosaki.

Rui was chained to a crude altar of wood, a cross set horizontally across shoddy looking supports. She moaned softly, nude body covered in a sheen of oil and sweat. Her belly was horrificly distended, the skin fluxing with the movement of the demon within. She had been marked, runes too like my own curse written upon her body in blood. I could see Miya's lifeless body crumpled at the foot of the crude dais, face frozen in the horror of her last moments on this plane. Her throat had been cut and her life spilled onto the ground at her own feet.

Rui's body arched unnaturally and she let out a keening wail.

"Okaasan!" I screamed, forgiving her every sin in that moment. No one should suffer as she was.

Fevered eyes met mine. She didn't need sense or reason to know that it was her son come for her, dead or no. "Hisoka? Hisoka! Tasukete!"

I knew it was a trap. A play at the last of my childish want to have my family back. The family that never was.

My foot disobeyed my mind and I stepped towards her. A figure whipped between us and fire seared across my abdomen. I looked up in shock at my father's face, slitted eyes glowing with triumph.

"You have returned to us," he whispered, voice strangely echoed. Of course he whispered. The slash across his throat was quickly soaking the thick bandage with dark blood. My father shouldn't have been able to move from his deathbed.

The demon's last chance before we could retrieve Nagare's soul and present him for Judgment...

The ground slammed into my knees, shock ringing through my body. My mother's screams for mercy faded away, all sound narrowing to my father's...no, the demon's advancing footsteps. I fought to move away, but my body had other ideas. The pain across my stomach had begun crawling down my chest into my legs. I fell slowly, slumping to the side and onto the ground.

I moved sluggishly, fighting against the demon's poison. My body wasn't working through the substance as quick as it should, leaving me with the horrifying knowledge that the demon knew not only who I was, but _what_ I was.

Nagare's shadow fell across my body. "Yes, I knew you." His eyes glowed with firelight. "The blood that runs through your veins betrayed you. Our blood."

_Fuck_. The cut on my hand from my father's suicide blade. It hadn't lasted more than a minute, but was apparently enough for the demon to recognize it's own aura in mine.

"I was never yours," I managed, though my tongue felt too thick in my mouth. Still, I wasn't about to give up and die. Not here. "Not your son, not your heir. I will not be your pawn."

The demon chuckled darkly, kneeling to meet my eyes. A clammy hand came up to touch my forehead and I grimaced at the power trying to break the barriers of my mind. "You can't help it. Part of you belongs to me.

His next words were like a child's song and I grew cold. "Ya...mi...no...ma...tsu...ei..."

- - - - -

The fight with the mabaroshi had cost precious minutes, time Tsuzuki knew he would never regain. The path stretched before him into eternity, a seeming infinite stretch of miles that separated him from Hisoka.

After the reality of mere minutes, Tsuzuki skidded to a stop a few feet from the now destroyed tableau that had held Kurosaki Rui. She was beyond dead, her belly torn open from within. A great hulking shadow shook itself free of the human remains of its unwilling human mother, adorned with her entrails.

It was easily eight feet in height, with a great barrel chest and limbs like trees. It's skin was scaled and each hand ended in sword length talons made to rend flesh from bone. Cloven feet stepped forward, eager to take on its first opponent in this world.

Tsuzuki's instincts kicked in as the blood covered demon turned on him with a slavering growl, summoning ofuda in his fingers.

"I call upon the twelve gods who protect me...Suzaku!" he cried and was swept back as the warding circle blazed at his feet, drawing the phoenix from the Gensoukai into the human world. Suzaku reared above him, wings shielding her master within a curtain of flame.

The demon screamed in return, hideous body still wet with its human mother's blood. Another moment and it was nothing but a satisfying pile of ash on the ground, dead before it could infest the human world.

"Hisoka!"

_Tsuzuki..._

Without hesitation, Tsuzuki followed the voice, heart quailing at the weakness he sensed in Hisoka. The altar wasn't far from the family graveyard, ancestral stones smeared with blood that Tsuzuki prayed didn't belong to his partner.

Tsuzuki was breathless as he stopped, terror stricken at the scene before him. Hisoka lay slumped against his own headstone, clothing torn and bloodied. Nagare stood above him, kimono about his waist revealing the snake scales coiled around his torso.

"Yatonokami, curse of the Kurosaki name, hear my call! I offer my son as your vessel, your body in this world!"

The incantation that followed was low and guttural, the words not meant for human ears. Tsuzuki recognized the demon tongue from years of experience with citizens of the Makai. It was a calling, an exorcism, drawing the demon from a host body.

He was too late...

_:somehow now you're everybody's fool:_

Nagare clutched his throat, choking up thick streams of bright red blood. "Ya...kami," he gasped through the liquid before falling across his childrens' grave. Hisoka's eyes fluttered briefly, before sliding shut.

_"Kasane...you...you were dead..."_

_The corpse smiled gently, gathering her husband into her cold arms. "Yes, love, I am dead. Now...you are too."_

Tsuzuki watched in horror as the obviously dead man continued to convulse, limbs bending and twisting, bones cracking and skin bursting. With horrific ease, Yatonokami pulled itself from the shell that had been Kurosaki Nagare.

"Free!" The serpent reared into the air, translucent body coiled about the remains of the Kurosaki. The bodiless demon hissed in triumph and dove forward towards Hisoka's unresisting form. Tsuzuki screamed in denial, calling Suzaku even as he leapt for Hisoka's body. There was a blinding flash as the demon and shinigami touched and Tsuzuki was thrown back.

The darkness that followed was so absolute, Tsuzuki was afraid he'd gone blind. The small fires set about had been blown over, leaving the dimmer moonlight to see by. Blinking quickly, he struggled to his feet, realizing that the result of the spell had flung Suzaku back to the Gensoukai. "Hisoka," he pleaded gently, tears streaming down his face as he came upon what he would have given his life to prevent.

The Yatonokami stood before him in the silvered moonlight, clothing dyed completely red with Nagare's blood. The boy was laughing, a cold, cruel sound that sent shivers down the shinigami's spine.

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki whispered brokenly, stepping forward, unwilling to believe the reality before him.

The terror in Tsuzuki's heart threatened to drag him down into comforting darkness, the place he had often sought refuge when he could no longer cope with what had happened to him. The truth was impossible to ignore.The boy before him was an abomination and should be killed.

_Tsuzuki...tasukete yo..._

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki cried again, falling to his knees. He was thankful for the near dark, with no light to see the absolute anguish in his amethyst eyes.

"Ah, Tsuzuki. Failed again?"

He flinched. It was Hisoka's face, Hisoka's voice...but, the boy was gone. The tiny connection Tsuzuki had fought so hard to make and keep with his partner was severed. Hisoka was truly dead.

And yet, Tsuzuki couldn't bring himself to kill him.

Yatonokami stepped forward slowly, a deliberate stalk, smile widening as the stricken shinigami fell in on himself, arms hugging his chest tightly. Hands were on his face, alien caresses so unlike Hisoka it hurt.

The boy's mouth was at his ear, tongue teasing the lobe. "I can see why he liked you so much, Tsuzuki-san. You're nearly as beautiful as I am."

"Yamero!"

The frozen shinigami was jerked back, shadows wrapped about his waist. He didn't have the presence of mind to wonder what was going on as Tatsumi and Watari faced down their former colleague.

"Give him back."

The deranged god paused for a moment, head cocked and finger on his chin, as if to consider Tatsumi's demand. "Say please."

_Anything!_ Tsuzuki's mind screamed, even as his heart realized the demon was just toying with them.

Shadows surged from the ground, Tatsumi ready to do what Tsuzuki could not.

"No!"

Tsuzuki felt the dark wind as the shadows were reigned in, anguished eyes never leaving the amused gaze of what had been his partner. The boy smiled, malicious and cold hearted.

"He's dead, Tsuzuki."

The dark haired shinigami felt something burn within in, falling to his knees with a pained groan. He clung to consciousness, even as Tatsumi's arms gathered him in a concerned embrace. With a questioning stare, the demon god waved to the shinigami team.

"Mata, ne!"

And in that instant, Hisoka...no, the Yatonokami was gone.

owari Everybody's Fool

tsuzuku Taking Over Me


End file.
